


MIA: Missing in America

by Erif_Of_Taloma



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers, NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crime Scenes, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Crossover, Gen, M/M, Murder Mystery, Supernatural Elements, Suspense, strange science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2018-04-02 22:28:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 41,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4076104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erif_Of_Taloma/pseuds/Erif_Of_Taloma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>NCIS is called in to what should be a simple case; find a missing marine. However the case is quickly complicated when it is discovered that the missing marine is the best friend of two other marines, one of whom has been dead for a month and the other who is still missing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This was the first story I ever wrote and I wrote it as a self challenge to see if I could even finish a multichaptered story in the first place. I think I did a relatively good job on it, and I am now putting it up here for you all to enjoy.
> 
> This story can also be found on Fanfiction.net by the same name, though I go by Kneoria over there.
> 
> Pairings: None/Cannon and PruCan if you squint. If I managed to write it right, that is.
> 
> Warnings: Language, UST, possible Out of Character moments, and random references to other fandoms that the Audience may not understand. Apologies for incomprehensible accents. Set after Jenny Shepard's death, but before Eli David's. This is a Triple crossover between NCIS, NCIS: LA, and Hetalia: Axis Powers
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters belong to their respective owners. I simply play with them for my, and your amusement.
> 
> For those not familiar with Hetalia: Hetalia is an Anime which re-imagines history and historical events as if the countries were actual people.
> 
> For those not familiar with NCIS or NCIS LA: Both are procedural crime show dramas that focus on crimes within the Navy, with one set in Washington DC and the other set in Los Angeles, California.

Joan bit her lip in worry as she stepped out of the car. How was she going to explain this to Kevin? Sure she was pregnant, but that did not mean that people had to treat her as if she were made of glass. She could still work. But no, her boss and his ideas of chivalry had told her to go home and take time off.

She locked the car and started up the walk to the front door. Two weeks until the due date, with no work at all. Normally this would be a godsend, a well-received break from the stress of her job at the hospital, but the break meant nothing to do. The remodeling was almost done, and Kevin wouldn't let her help anyways.

The only good thing about all of this would be that Kevin was actually home to help with all of the housework. Joan smiled at that. It had been nice to hear that her husband would not be deployed again, at least not for another two months. The problems caused by boredom before and the tiredness of after were far less when her husband was here. Any problems from either of their jobs would not matter either. They had proven to themselves that they could work out their problems a month before. Joan grew somber as she recalled the events at the beginning of last month, and then pushed it out of mind. No moping, she told herself firmly. It would be hard enough to convince Kevin to let her do anything, without feeling sorry for herself.

Opening the door, Joan shrugged off her jacket and hung it up in the closet. "Kevin?" she called "I'm home." Shutting the closet door, Joan made her way to the kitchen. "When I showed up for work today Dr. Cormic took one look at me, walked me out of the room and informed me that I was now on Maternity leave and I was to go directly home, and let my wonderful husband take care of me." Well that was not what her boss said exactly. He had been a lot more blunt and it had been slightly embarrassing.

No response. Maybe he hadn't heard her. Joan kept talking, projecting her voice so that she could be heard throughout the house. "Anyways," She continued, stopping to place her purse on the hall table, "It means that I wont get any pay for the next month or so. Will we be ok?" she asked out loud. Still no answer. Now that was strange. If her husband simply had not heard her at the beginning, by now he should have. "Kevin?" she called a note of worry in her voice. No answer. Joan backtracked out of the kitchen and walked into the bedroom. "Kevin?" She called again the worry now evident in her voice. He wasn't here either. Maybe he had gone to work outside. If so, then no amount of shouting would reach him. Joan took a breath to calm herself as she walked into the living room. She peered outside against the glare of the sun to see if Kevin was working on the lawn. He wasn't there but something was wrong. She could tell. Joan looked down at the floor, and screamed. A few moments later, she had gotten herself under control enough to get to a phone.

She took a few deep breaths to calm herself as the person on the other end of the line began talking, "Nine One One. What is your emergency?"

Joan inhaled and the words came out in a rush "Myhusbandismissingandthereisalargeamountofbloodonthebackporch. I" she took a deep breath "I th. th. th. th. I think… I think he may be dead!"


	2. Of Boxes and Lost Bets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story can also be found on Fanfiction.net by the same name, though I go by Kneoria over there.
> 
> Pairings: None/Cannon and PruCan if you squint. If I managed to write it right, that is.
> 
> Warnings: Language, UST, possible Out of Character moments, and random references to other fandoms that the Audience may not understand. Apologies for incomprehensible accents. Set after Jenny Shepard's death, but before Eli David's. This is a Triple crossover between NCIS, NCIS: LA, and Hetalia: Axis Powers
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters belong to their respective owners. I simply play with them for my, and your amusement.

Something plopped onto the corner of McGee's desk. He glanced at it. It appeared to be a box, and McGee ignored it as he finished entering data into the system.

"McGeek!" an obnoxious voice said from above him.

"What do you want Tony?" McGee said looking up at his coworker and the box that he was leaning on.

"McGeek, enter these cases for me." Tony DiNozzo.

"No"

"Come on McGeek."

"I said no Tony."

"I'll owe you one."

"You already do, Tony" McGee said

"I do?" Tony asked confused.

"Yeah, you do. You still haven't paid me the ten from the bet last month."

"Are you sure? I thought I paid you back for that. On Tuesday."

"No." Ziva spoke up. "You did not pay McGee back on Tuesday, because then you would have had to pay me back as well."

McGee nodded his head in agreement, with Ziva's statement. "Besides, I have my own case files to enter." He added almost as an afterthought.

Tony snorted, almost grateful for the topic change. He hated being reminded that he owed people. "Yeah, But knowing you McGoo, they're probably almost done"

McGee shot Tony a look, then shook his head. "No Tony. I won't do your work for you. That's final. You should do your own work before Gibbs finds out"

Tony opened his mouth to retort but before he could a gruff voice cut him off asking, "Find out what McGee?"

A look of slight panic came across Tony's face, and McGee ignored it looking up to see his boss, Leroy Jethro Gibbs making his way towards his desk. "That ummm…"

"Tony is behind on his case files, Gibbs" Ziva said, clearly not wanting to deal with the bickering.

Gibbs just nodded then said "Catch up later, DiNozzo. Gear up!"

Tony scrambled back to his own desk to gather his stuff, leaving the box behind on McGee's desk, while Ziva grabbed her backpack. McGee glared at the box then said aloud "What do we have boss?"

Gibbs stopped at his desk and grabbed the keys out of a drawer before answering. "We've got…" He paused, and experiencing a sort of déjà vu said "That's a good question McGee"

Tony froze and looked up from his backpack "Whoa, another Psycho case Boss?"

"Psycho?" Ziva asked confused then snapped her fingers in rememberance. "Ah, The bathroom"

"On a patio this time." Was all Gibbs said as they crowded into the elevator.

 

"The house should be in this neighborhood" McGee said fighting to stay in his seat as the car turned sharply around a corner then slowed to a more manageable speed.

"I'll bet it's that house right there, Probie" Tony said from the front seat, pointing his finger at a house two doors down.

"Why would you say that Tony?"

"Because that's the only house on the block with a couple of Metro PD Detective standing in the front yard."

The two detectives in question looked up as the dark blue car pulled up against the curb, with the medical van close behind. Tony hopped out of the car squinting against the sun at the older detective. After a moment he called out "Dee Laytner? Hey man! How have you been? When did you make detective?"

The detective looked up when his name was called. "DiNozzo?" He asked and a smile lit up his face "A couple of years ago. What are you doing here?" He didn't even let Tony answer the question before continuing. "Ah, right you jumped ship on us. How have you been man?"

"Right, I'm with NCIS now. And life's been good. Hey are we going to have jurisdictional argument on who takes the lead on this one?"

Dee laughed took the clipboard from his partner and handed it off to Tony. "Naw man, the case is all yours. Have fun, it's a doozy."

Suddenly his partner spoke up. "You won't be needing that yet."

Everyone turned to look to see to whom he was talking to. Palmer and Ducky had started to pull the gurney out of the medical van. At their questioning look, the detective elaborated. "We haven't found a body yet."

As the group puzzled over that information, Jimmy Palmer, the assistant ME, voiced what they were all now wondering. "Excuse me but, if there isn't a body then why are we here?"

The medical examiner, Dr. Mallard but known as Ducky to the team, looked up at his assistant then said aloud, "I am now wondering that myself, my boy. Jethro?" he asked not turning around, but pushed the gurney back into the truck and pulled out his bag "Why are we here?" Gibbs just shrugged and looked back at the Metro Officers, waiting for further explanation.

"There's enough blood so that there should be one." Dee said with a slight shrug. "The woman who called in said that there was a lot of blood on her patio. When we got here there was no body. We taped off the area and started to search but didn't find anything before we learned that her husband was a Marine. We stopped then, and called you. We've heard that you like to do things for yourselves. We did recommend that you bring a medical examiner in case you found one. " A phone rang shrilly and the other detective answered walking away from the group so that he wouldn't interrupt the conversation.

"Ah. Well thank you then for your foresight" Ducky was saying, satisfied with the explanation he had been given. There was a brief pause as a smile appeared on his face and he started saying "You know this reminds me of a time when I was in Scotland, and this young man came in with a… "

He was interrupted by a call of "Dee!" and they turned to look at the other detective who was waving a cell phone in the air. "Chief just called. We gotta go."

"What does the badger want now?" Dee complained to his partner's back as he was already heading towards their car.

"We've got a lead!" came the reply, causing a new expression to come over Dee's face. He turned to the NCIS team. "Sorry about this, we have to run. Everything that we know is in there" he motioned to the clipboard that Tony was holding. "Catch ya later Tony. Wait up Ryo!" He hollered, and the Metro PD detective took off running after his partner.

"He's always been like that." Tony said with a shrug handing Gibbs the clipboard as they watched the car speed off. Ducky took the moment to continue his story. "As I was saying, one time a young man came in with…"

"Duck…" Gibbs said cutting him off, a slight warning in his voice.

Dr. Mallard looked up at him with a smile "Another time then?" and Gibbs nodded as he started walking up to the door. The rest of the team followed behind. Knocking on the door, the team was treated to a yell of "Just a minute" and then the door was open by a very pregnant woman. She looked at the group with exasperation and exhaustion was evident on her face. "If you guys are with the police, then I just told you everything that I know."

Gibbs shook his head and showed her the badge. "Special Agent Gibbs." He nodded at the rest of the team in turn "Special Agents DiNozzo, McGee, David and Dr. Mallard. We're NCIS, Miss…" He trailed off inviting her to finish.

"Samson. Joan Samson." She said looking at them.

Gibbs looked at her. "You called the police about your missing husband?" She nodded, looking slightly wary.

"Mrs. Samson, we have some questions for you about your husband. Can we come in and look at the crime scene?"

Joan visibly deflated, giving into her apparent exhaustion. "Yeah, come on in." she walked away from the door, leading the group into the living room, where she sank down onto the sofa. "Your crime scene is out back. You can get to it from the kitchen which is through the door to your left."

Gibbs nodded, all business. "DiNozzo: crime scene, bag and tag, photos, sketches. Duck, see how much blood it is and if its actually enough to mean there is a body. David, you and I will, search the backyard, see how they got in and look for a body. McGee, take her statement." He handed McGee the clipboard then followed the rest of his team out the way Mrs. Samson had indicated and didn't look back. Behind him he heard McGee start, with a "Can you please tell me what happened, Mrs. Samson?"

 

"Any one have something?" Gibbs asked as he stepped out onto the patio and almost directly into a huge pool of blood. Changing his course mid-stride Gibbs stepped over the narrowest part of the pool. "Anything?" he asked looking around. The backyard was rather average with the beginnings of a heavily wooded area bordering the yard. The blood was right by the sliding glass door that he had just stepped through. The patio was concrete which had allowed the blood to pool and prevented it from going anywhere. The pool itself was already dry at the edges but the middle was still a liquid.

Ducky glanced up at Gibbs from where he was bent over, examining the pool. "That's strange," he said, looking at Gibbs. "Jethro, there are at least 2 liters of blood here. No one could loose that much and live. There should be a body here somewhere"

Tony spoke up from his left, still on the patio but a good few feet away, taking a picture of something that appeared to lead into the light forest that bordered the area. "Gibbs, more blood over here. I don't think that it's from the same person who caused that pool, though. The stuff over here is just drops, but condensed, like someone cut themselves on something and didn't have time to do anything about it."

Gibbs nodded his head and then looked around. One of his team had wandered off. "Where's Ziva?" he asked.

"Here Gibbs," her accented Israeli voice floated out from just inside the trees. Moments later the woman in question appeared, apparently retracing her steps. "The blood drops lead this way. I followed them, and searched the area but did not find a body. Based on the footprints I found, I think that there were two people standing here on the patio, and that three or four more people came. Whatever their original purpose was, they killed one of the two men on accident then carried off the other and the body, but did not have enough time to clean up the blood. There is a service road a little ways away with more footprints and fresh tire tracks on it. I am guessing they belong to the perpetrators."

Gibbs nodded. That seemed to be the most logical explanation for how they got away. But they also could not be sure. It was just as likely that the pool was Mr. Samson's blood and the perpetrators took the body. Just then McGee stepped outside. He too almost stepped into the blood pool. Gibbs moved over so that his agent could stand next to him. Time to test Ziva's theory. "Was her husband expecting guests today McGee?" Gibbs asked as Tony took pictures of the blood trail.

McGee shook his head. "No, boss. Mrs. Samson says that he was alone and already working on the baby room when she left at nine o'clock this morning heading to work."

Gibbs frowned. It didn't immediately disprove Ziva's theory. Someone could have dropped in unexpectedly while Mrs. Samson was out. It did however make his unspoken one seem more likely.

"Then whose blood is this?" Tony asked from the other side of the mess.

"I don't know, DiNozzo. They could both be from the husband, or it could be as Ziva supposed and there were two people here. That's what we're going to figure out. Get some pictures of the footprints that Ziva found, a mold of those tire tracks and some samples for Abby then head back to base. There's nothing more we can do here."

"Ok Gibbs," Tony said reaching down for the swabs, only to find that Ducky and the autopsy gremlin had already gotten the samples. "Ducky and Palmer already got the samples Gibbs. I'll just go get those pictures and that mold then we'll be ready to roll."

 

"Hi Tony! What did you bring me today?" Abigail "Abby" Scuito, the happy goth forensic scientist, inquired as Tony walked into her lab.

"Blood, footprints, a mold of some tire tracks and some other photos." Was the response as Tony lifted up the bags and camera.

"Cool." Abby said taking the items from him. "So what's the case today? Murder? Kidnapping? Or something completely different?"

"Both" Tony said, nonchalantly.

"Both?" she turned to look at him confused.

"Both a murder and or a kidnapping. We think." Seeing her look, Tony just shrugged. "A woman called the police saying that her husband was missing and she thought that he was dead. They found out he was a Marine and called us. When we got there, the crime scene was just this big puddle of blood. It wasn't even dry all the way. According to Ducky, there was at least two liters"

Abby gaped at him "Tony, there is no way anyone could have survived loosing that much blood."

"We know. Ziva is of the opinion that there were two people there, and the perps killed one and kidnapped the other. Gibbs is a little more skeptical. There was more blood, a little ways away that simply looked like someone had cut himself. Either way, the body and the marine are missing"

"Weird." Abby said going to her computer to start up the DNA tests.

"I know." Tony said "McGeek is looking up information on this guy, so I need to get back upstairs."

Abby just nodded, as she prepped her machines and Tony slipped out the door.

 

McGee stared at the screen in shock as he looked through Private Kevin Samson's file. The man was 29, enrolled right out of high school, done 3 tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, married one Joan Kennewick, his high school girlfriend, two years ago and had a clean record. All fairly normal, and not at all shocking. What was shocking was the unit that he had been assigned to.

"McGee?" Ziva asked concerned for her friend. He was staring at the screen with a strange expression on his face. No response. Not even a sign that he had heard her. "McGee?" It was as if he had paused out.

"Woah, what's wrong with McGeek?" Tony's voice said from over her shoulder.

Ziva merely shrugged. "I do not know. He just suddenly stopped typing and got a strange look on his face. It is like he paused out or something."

Tony blinked at her. "You mean spaced out Zee-vah." He said, smile on his face purposefully stretching out her name.

She waved her hand at him. "Yes that. But how do we get him out of it before Gibbs gets back? Have you found anything?"

"Nope. Have you?"

"Nothing strange on his credit cards or his phone records. The man is mousy clean."

"Squeaky clean. Well, McGee obviously does. Otherwise he wouldn't have reacted like that. I'm going to try to snap him out of it."

Just then Gibbs walked in, cup of coffee in his hand. "Snap who out of it?" He turned then spotted McGee just sitting there "McGee!" he snapped, tone voicing no arguments. McGee jumped, and looked up at his boss with wide eyes.

"Boss," he said in a strange voice "You need to see this…" his fingers flying across the keyboard, to pull the information up on the plasma.

Gibbs, Tony and Ziva turned to look to see Private Kevin Samson's records appear on the screen. After a few minutes of reading, it was unclear what the problem was. The man was squeaky clean as Ziva had put it, no blemishes on his record at all. Gibbs stared at the screen waiting for whatever McGee was trying to show him. It wasn't obvious. "McGee," He said patiently but more than slightly annoyed "What is it that I am supposed to be looking at?"

"Umm well boss…" he began, looked at the screen and started typing. Moments later the screen split into two and a photo appeared next to the records. Tony stepping closer to peer at what appeared to be a unit picture, as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

"Boss-man, this guy belongs to the same unit with that case last month"

Gibbs looked back to the screen. Yep, same number, same unit, same faces in the picture. He was starting to get a bad feeling about all of this and briefly registered McGee saying, "According to the statements that we got last time, this was Private Jones and Private Straight's best friend."

"So, the Third Musketeer then?" Tony asked with a smile

"Yeah." McGee said

"Did we ever find Private Jones?" Gibbs asked suddenly.

His agents hesitated, and then shook their heads in variations of No.

"Did the other team have better luck?"

"Not to my knowledge" said Tony

"Get the file back from the other team and find him. Or his next of kin." He said as he walked off hearing Tony exclaim, "Hey McGee, I bet I can find Jones or his relative before you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There we have Chapter 1. If you see a typo please feel free to let me know!
> 
> For those who care, Dee and Ryo are from a Manga called Fake.


	3. Blood of a Nation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story can also be found on Fanfiction.net by the same name, though I go by Kneoria over there.
> 
> Pairings: None/Cannon and PruCan if you squint. If I managed to write it right, that is.
> 
> Warnings: Language, UST, possible Out of Character moments, and random references to other fandoms that the Audience may not understand. Apologies for incomprehensible accents. Set after Jenny Shepard's death, but before Eli David's. This is a Triple crossover between NCIS, NCIS: LA, and Hetalia: Axis Powers
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters belong to their respective owners. I simply play with them for my, and your amusement.

"Tragedy has once again befallen one of the nation's Elite Marine Units" The TV announced "One month ago a member of this unit was found dead. At first, the death was viewed as an accident but investigation led to the knowledge that the body was only the most recent in a series of serial killings. At the same time Private Alfred F Jones was also discovered to be missing and it was presumed that he too fell victim to the serial killer. The murderer was apprehended and went on trail two weeks ago. She was proven guilty but denies ever killing Private Jones. NCIS is still searching for him. Then three days ago Private Kevin Samson, a member of the same Marine unit and friend to both Marines, was reported missing and is presumed to dead by authorities. They came to this conclusion when his wife, Joan Samson reported his disappearance to the police and upon investigation discovered a large amount of blood on her back porch. The Naval Criminal Investigation Services has increased their search for the missing private but they refuse to say if Private Jones is a suspect, or anything else on the matter. If you have any information call…."

Matthew Williams was shocked. His brother was missing. From the way the report was continuing on, it sounded like they were already accusing his brother of being a murderer. Which was impossible. Alfred loved all of his citizens way too much. It was why he took in anyone and everyone. It was why he went to war as a private with them.

A strange hissing sound interrupted his train of thought. It was followed by a heavily accented, highly amused voice. "Vell, now ve know vhy ve haf not been able to find your bruder. He is in hiding"

Matthew turned to look at his albino friend who was coming out of the bathroom, wrapped up in towel, silver hair turned grey and plastered to his head with water. "Its not funny Gilbert" he scolded lightly

"Ja, It is." The Prussian paused for a moment then shrugged his trademark smirk present on his face, "Ok maybe not funny to you, but definitely amusing to me."

Matthew just rolled his eyes and flopped back onto his bed as Gilbert dropped the towel and began to get dressed. "Alfred" He said into his pillow, "What the hell have you gotten into now?"

"Vögelchen," Gilbert said, pulling on a pair of pants, "If it bothers you that much ve can go talk to the NCIS people. They probably vant to talk to you anyvays."

Matthew mumbled something incoherent into his pillow, and Gilbert raised an eyebrow. "Vögelchen, I know I am awesome and have awesome hearing, but it is still hard to hear you when you try to suffocate yourself in a pillow." He said good-naturedly.

Matthew made a rude gesture in response, but lifted his head up to look at Gilbert. "Why, would my brother's people want to talk to me?"

Gilbert shrugged while he pulled a shirt out of the suitcase. He held it up to his nose then tossed it onto the bed and pulled out another shirt. "Gotta do laundry soon" he commented off handedly, then continued more seriously "and vhy vouldn't they? They are government people trying to find your bruder, and you are listed as the next of kin."

Matthew frowned. "Why haven't they called us then? If he's been missing for a month, and the Marine has been dead two days, why haven't they called us?"

Gilbert pulled out another shirt and pulled this one on. "Really Mattie? You haf to ask? Ve're nations. Looking for one of us raises all kinds of flags. And ve have been traveling all over your bruder's land looking for him, leaving all kinds of confusing paper trails. I vould be surprised if they found us before today."

"Right" Matthew drawled. "And what would you have us do now, oh awesome knowledge bearer?" he asked sarcastically.

Gilbert just smirked. "Vell" he drawled in the exact same tone of voice that Matthew had been using "I vould call them and then ve vould go in to help. That vay, you could steer them avay from dangerous things that they shouldn't know."

Matthew shut his mouth. He had been about to protest going in because they might discover who they were, but his friend's logic made sense. Wait a minute… "We?" He asked Gilbert surprise showing on his face.

"Ja, ve. If you vent by yourself, you vould probably be too shy and quiet for them to notice you." Gilbert shrugged. "You really need to fix that."

Matthew rolled his eyes at his friend again and fwumped back into the pillow. "All right," he said rolling on to his side to face his friend, and sticking out his hand. "I'll call them."

Gilbert looked at him confused, then high fived Matthew's upturned palm. At Matthew's exasperated look, Gilbert shrugged and asked "Vat?"

"Gilbert, I need the phone. Can you get it for me?"

"Fuck Noh. Gettit yourself."

"Gilbert. Get me the phone please."

"Hmmmm. Noh. I vill not get you the phone."

"Really?"

"Ja, Really. Und der is nottink you cahn do about it."

"Not true. I can do something."

Gilbert raised an eyebrow at the last statement and turned around to look at his friend. Moments later, he was flat on his back, on the floor with a pillow in his face. He sat there for a minute shocked and could hear Matthew calling his name worriedly. He blinked and soon the sound of his laughter filled the air. He popped back up looking over at his best friend with amusement in his eyes, "So that's how its going to be then?" and proceeded to chuck the pillow back at Matthew. 30 minutes later, feathers were all over the room and the two grown men were struggling to breath through their laughter and laying side by side on one of the two beds. The cell phone that had started the mess, was sitting between them. Matthew caught his breath and grabbed the phone, punching in the number for NCIS that had been on the television screen. Gilbert watched his friend and counted fight as a win. Matthew had grabbed the phone himself after all. Sitting up Gilbert ran his hands through his hair impatient to leave already. He needed to move. Hopping off of the bed, Gilbert threw open the hotel window and a small yellow bird flew in landing on his head. Gilbert looked up at his bird with a smile and began talking to it softly, as the two of them waited as patiently as they could while Matthew was on the phone.

 

"Find anything yet, McSleuth?" Tony said leaning back in his chair.

McGee just rolled his eyes and continued looking at his computer screen. "No Tony, as I said five minutes ago I don't know where Matthew Williams is. I'm looking ok?"

"No, McGee that is not ok. Normally it only takes us one day. One day to find everyone involved and talk to them. Three days is somewhat of a record for not being able to notify family."

"Stop pestering McGee, Tony. I do not think that you have discovered anything either. Otherwise you would be demanding that we get you coffee for winning the bet, and finding Private Jones before McGee got in touch with his brother." Ziva said looking over at Tony. "You are not even working."

"Who's not working?" Gibbs asked as he walked towards his desk, coffee in hand.

"No one boss." Tony said quickly, sitting up in his chair.

Gibbs just looked at his disbelievingly. "Are we any closer to find Jones or getting in touch with his brother?"

"No luck on Jones." Tony said.

"I haven't found his brother, yet either." McGee said.

Gibbs looked over at Ziva who simply shook her head no. Exasperated he threw up his hands. "Well what do we have then?" He demanded

McGee looked sheepish and pulled up a photo onto the screen. "Meet Matthew Williams. Born at 11:59 July first. Twin brother to the missing Private Alfred F Jones, age 23, single never married. He currently lives in Ottawa, Canada but regularly visits the other Providences. Williams was a Member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and constantly got pulled for special assignment, and now teaches Canadian and World history at the local high school. When I called to ask the school to talk to him, they said that he had taken a two-month vacation to go to the USA to deal with family matters. They didn't seem to be too worried that he was not there. Apparently he also consults from the government from time to time so he flies around the world a lot. I found records of two-plane tickets in his name to Honolulu, Hawaii from Juneau, Alaska and then another to LAX from Hawaii. I couldn't find any records of a cell phone, but I'm looking through his credit card records now." McGee finished. "He's hard to track down. I'm not sure why though. Aside from consulting for the government, the man is a normal citizen."

"Find him" Gibbs ordered.

"Yes Gibbs" McGee answered and went back to watching the screen.

"What do we have on Private Jones?"

Tony leapt out of his chair to stand next to the screen. He pointed the remote and the picture changed. "Private Alfred F. Jones. Born 00:05 July 2 but celebrates July 4. He is now 23, single, never married. Served in Iraq, and just returned Afghanistan one month ago. Best friend to Private Straight and our missing Private Samson. Went AWOL just before Straight was killed. Last time anyone saw him was when he and Samson drove Private Straight home from the bar the night their unit returned. Nothing on his credit cards, or phone records since he disappeared but before that, there were a lot of calls to a residence in England. He also took a lot of trips around the country, and is also consistently pulled for special assignment. I couldn't find what he was working on though. It pulled up all kinds of red flags."

Gibbs nodded. "Why different last names? And where do they go? What do they consult on?"

At that both Tony and McGee looked up. "I don't know Boss." McGee said. "The file didn't say."

"Neither did Jones's" Tony added helpfully.

Gibbs glared at him. "Find them." He repeated. "Ziva, any luck on finding out why someone would want to kidnap or kill Samson?"

"No, Gibbs. I have not had any luck, but I will keep looking." She responded looking up from her computer. "There was nothing special about him. He does not even have access to classified information. Poor family, no siblings, parents deceased. Has a house with his wife, Joan. I checked out her background to see if was blackmail against her. I could not find anything. Mrs. Samson is a doctor at the local hospital and doesn't do anything with the government. So I hit a building."

"Wall" Tony interjected.

Gibbs opened his mouth to say something but was cut off by ringing of his cell. He answered and was nearly defend by an excited "Gibbs, Gibbs Gibbs Gibbs!"

"Yes, Abbs?"

"I found something."

"Alright Abbs I'm on my way." Gibbs said and surveyed the room. "Keep looking." He said again and headed off towards the elevator.

 

Abby was bouncing with excitement as her music blared on. She had found something huge and weird. And now all she had to do was wait for Gibbs to get there to show him. She didn't wait long as he walked in at just that moment. "Whatta got Abbs?"

"Something really really weird! Do you want the weird one first or the normal one first?" She asked beaming at him.

Gibbs just looked at her then said, "I want you to turn the music down."

Abby pouted slightly, but complied with an "Ok Gibbs." and then continued on to the evidence. "The footprints were useless. I couldn't get anything from them. Just standard dress shoes." Turning back to her computer she quickly pulled up a picture of the tire tracks. "The car that you are looking for is actually a van. It's a Ford Transit Connect. And I know that doesn't help much cause they are pretty common and I didn't know which color it was either, so that probably doesn't help either."

"Is that what you called me down here for Abbs?"

"Gibbs," she almost whined. "I'm not done yet."

He just looked at her, waiting for her to go on. "So I ran the two blood samples. The first one, the one that came from the smaller blood sample came back as a match for Private Samson. And then the other blood sample matched it."

"So there was only one person then?" Gibbs inquired raising an eyebrow.

"Nope! There were definitely two people there" Abby exclaimed gleefully. At Gibbs exasperated look, she elaborated. "It was only a partial match with an 80%. That would mean a sibling, or a parent."

Gibbs frowned as he let the information sink in. What was it that Ziva had said about his siblings? "But Samson was an only child."

"I know!" Abby said, "Weird right? So I ran it again because I thought it was a glitch or contaminated and I got the same thing. So I decided that there was nothing that I could do about it because of the nature of DNA allows the chance that something like that could actually happen. So then I opened the search for the second sample to all of the databases I could access and that's when things got really really hinky. According to the data that I received, the blood matches every American citizen, criminals and marines alike by 80%. Every citizen that has been naturalized for at least 15 years matches for the same amount but anyone who's been a naturalized citizen for less time matches with a percentage range of 72% to 79%." Abby turned to look at her boss. "And he's O positive! Do you realize just how impossible that is? That means that the man could be a donor for almost everyone in the country!"

Gibbs just hmmed in response as he took in the information. Abby was right. That was strange. "Did you get an actual ID on who the pool of blood belonged to?"

"Yep! There were a couple of results that came in with a match of higher than 80%. There was a 97% match that was from the only foreign match, a Canadian by the name of Matthew Williams, and then a 99% match from his twin, our very own Alfred F Jones, missing marine from last month's case." Abby said with a smile

Now Gibbs was annoyed. This missing marine was showing up everywhere in his investigation. His musing was interrupted by an excited "So?" from Abby.

"Good work Abbs." Gibbs said, placing down the Caf-Pow that he had brought, kissed her on the forehead and walked out of the lab. They really needed to find Jones or his brother.

 

McGee was feeling very proud of himself. Sure it had taken him three days, but he had found Matthew Williams. A ringing phone caused him to look up. It was Ziva's and she answered it with a "NCIS, Special Agent Ziva David speaking" She fell silent, as she listened to the person on the other end of the line. Tony was lounging at his desk, but Gibbs was nowhere to be seen. Just then a ding sounded from the elevator, and the door slid open revealing whom McGee had wanted to see. "Boss!" he yelled across the bullpen. "I found him!"

"What?" Tony asked in disbelief and he was on his feet in an instant. "You found who?"

"I found Matthew Williams, Tony." McGee smiled. "It looks like you owe me coffee."

"I do not."

"Yes, you do DiNozzo." Gibbs said, speaking up. He stood there for a second waiting, then demanded "Well McGee? You said you found him. Where is he?"

"In a hotel in Downtown D.C. He just used his card to pay for the hotel room. Here's the address." McGee added, handing Gibbs a slip of paper.

Gibbs nodded. "Alright. Good work McGee. Tony, get him his coffee later. We're going to pick up Mr. Williams."

"You do not need to, Gibbs." Came Ziva's voice as she put down the phone. "I was just talking to Mr. Williams. He said that he and his friend would come by in fifteen to forty five minutes to talk to us. They want to help us find his brother." She turned thoughtful. "I believe that means you owe me a coffee as well, Tony"

Tony just gaped at the two of them. He couldn't believe it. The last two bets that he had made, he had lost. It wasn't fair. "No I don't" he quickly ground out hoping to weasel his way out of the situation. A quick glance at the clock confirmed what he had hoped would not be true. It was about 9:30 in the morning. The coffee cart would be crowed, and he did not want to wait in that line.

Gibbs looked at him. "Yes it does. Go get them their coffee DiNozzo. Now. We have time before Mr. Williams and his friend get here." And with that Gibbs turned around, sat in his desk, and waited patiently for his archaic computer to boot up. Tony grumbled under his breath, but headed towards the elevator just the same.

 

Forty-five minutes later, the elevator door opened and Tony walked back into the office carrying four cups of coffee. McGee was on the phone, Gibbs and Director Vance were talking and Ziva was working on the computer.

"Here" he said handing her a cup. "Black with sugar."

"Thank you Tony." Ziva said reaching for the cup.

"Hey, has Jones's brother gotten here yet?"

"No, but they have another 10 minutes before they are late."

Tony just nodded and wandered over to McGee's desk and handed him his almond late. "Yeah, Let him up." McGee said into the phone as he took the coffee, looking around for someone or something. "I don't see the other guy though, maybe he went to the bathroom?" The person on the other end of the said something and McGee chuckled, and the conversation started to die down as Tony drifted towards his boss and the Director who were deep in conversation. "Here, Boss." He said handing Gibbs his coffee, and they both turned to look at him, stopping their conversation.

"What took you so long DiNozzo?" He asked, as Vance watched the exchange between two of them, waiting patiently to get back to the conversation.

"They moved the coffee cart boss. It took me a few minutes to find it, and when I did" Tony broke off there looking at his boss's face, "And you don't really care, do you boss? I'll be faster next time."

Gibbs nodded, and Vance took the moment to ask, "Have you found Jones yet?"

"Not Jones." Tony said, "We found his brother. He's supposed to be here any minute now."

Vance nodded, and the two returned to their previous conversation. Tony, clearly dismissed, made his way over to Ziva's desk. "So what have they been talking about?"

"The director and Gibbs have been trying to figure out what it is exactly that Private Jones consults on."

"You mean Vance doesn't know?"

"Apparently not." She shrugged, "According to the conversation, Vance does not think that Sec. Nav. knows either."

Tony's eyebrows went up and an expression of shock came over his face. In a dramatic stage whisper, he asked "Sec. Nav. Doesn't know?"

"That is what Vance suspects." Ziva said again, going back to typing on the computer while Tony sat in shock on the corner of her desk. The elevator door opened with a ding, and Tony turned to watch it, as his coworkers did their jobs, and their bosses discussed secret stuff. Out of the elevator strode a young, silver haired, pale man with red eyes, holding two cups of coffee. He made a beeline towards the brick pillar that separated a couple of windows right in front of their desks. Tony raised an eyebrow and nudged Ziva.

"That's the guy who was ahead of me in line. Wonder what he's doing here?" Ziva simply shrugged, her attention not wavering from the screen, as Tony openly stared. "He got rid of the chick though." He added offhandedly.

That statement caused Ziva to look up at Tony. "What?" she asked disbelievingly, not sure she had heard that correctly.

"The chick. While I was in the line, that man had a little bird sitting on his head. Y'know a chick." Tony looked at her curiously, and a little smug. "What did you think I meant?"

"Nothing" she said, and redirected her attention to the albino who had walked in. He had stopped at the windows just in front of their desks ignoring them, as they looked him over.

"Matt, you didn't boder to say anyting did you?" the strange man said, very clearly annoyed, while handing a man who almost literally appeared out of nowhere, one of the cups. Tony's jaw dropped. How long had the quiet guy been standing there? How had he and more importantly how had Ziva, not noticed him? He glanced at her. She seemed just as shocked by this man's sudden appearance as he was. The albino didn't even wait for a response and he continued berating his friend. "I left you outside to get us coffee forty minutes ago, und you valk in, und don't say anything. Und den you fade into the background. Again. You really have to vork on dat. Der is a reason dat your bruder tinks you are a vuss. Und the rest of the vorld…" He was cut off by an elbow to the stomach, and the formerly invisible man said sarcastically in a soft tone, "Sorey Gilbert. Its just that I love" he rolled his eyes here, "having my plainness rubbed in my face. And we are making a scene."

Gilbert glanced up at the people starting at him and shrugged. "Und I care vhy? I ahm only here for moral support."

Matthew snorted and rolled his eyes, muttering a "yeah right." He walked forwards, towards the girl's desk that had the man sitting on it and asked "Ziva David? I'm Matthew Williams. We spoke on the phone."

Ziva smiled and shook his hand. "Yes, I believe we did. This is my co-worker Tony." She gestured at him, and kept going before he had a chance to say anything "It is nice of you to come in instead of us having to call." She glanced at Matthew's friend who was taking a sip of coffee and observing the group. He looked at them all briefly and then settled for starting at Director Vance, as if trying to figure out something. The Director was staring calmly back, as if there was nothing wrong with this at all. She filed it away for later and walked out from behind the desk saying, "If you and your friend could come this way, please?"

"Alright." Matthew said but he was not really watching her. He too had noticed that his best friend was staring at one of the people in the area, and that they were staring back. "Gil?"

"Mm?" Was his only reply as his friend took yet another sip of coffee, still looking at Vance. As Matthew watched, confusion changed to recognition and then surprise flashed across Gilbert's face. A moment later all three emotions had vanished, replaced by the smirk he normally wore and Matthew sighed. He knew his friend and his habits. Something like that could only mean that Gilbert knew something and he wasn't telling nor would be anytime soon.

"Come on." He said instead of asking what Gilbert was thinking. There were times he didn't want to know.

"Do I haf to?" Gilbert asked, slightly teasing his friend.

"You're the one who insisted on coming"

"Vat? I did noh such ting."

"Yes you did" Matthew replied as they followed Ziva down the hall.

The group watched Ziva lead the two bantering men down the hall in an uncomfortable silence. A few moments later Ziva had returned but still, it persisted. Finally after a few more heavy moments, Tony finally blurted out, "What was that all about?"

No one answered, and Tony took that as a signal to continue. "Seriously, that was really strange. It seemed like he recognized you or something, Director."

"I think he did." Was the curt response, and at that Gibbs raised an eyebrow.

"What aren't you telling me Leon?"

Vance ignored the question, and instead turned to McGee. "McGee, look up a man by the name of Johan Günter."

"I thought Matthew called him Gilbert" Tony piped up, but he too was ignored as McGee typed the name into the computer.

"We don't have anything on him in the system"

Vance looked at him, in slight surprise. "What's going on?" Gibbs demanded, tired of waiting and Vance let out a soft sigh. "Twenty years ago," He began "My partner and I smuggled a man by that name out of the Eastern part of Germany. We'd found him imprisoned in an alleged KGB safe house. It was supposedly being used by the mafia, but we suspected that it was a front. We raided the place and found him in really bad shape, but still alive. He told us that his name was Johan Günter and he was a German intelligence officer. Then he passed out. The KGB or Mafia whoever they really were had abandoned the house so we got him out of there. We were surprised when three months later, we ran into Johan again in the middle of one of our ops, in perfect health and he helped take down various soviet operations. After the second op, we started asking him questions, about what he as doing back but mainly about how he had gotten captured in the first place. The most that we ever got from him, was that he did it to protect his little brother, and that he had a burning hatred for a Russian giant by the name of Ivan. Gilbert Whoever he is, looks almost exactly like him."

Gibbs looked at his boss then grabbed the case file and walked down the hall towards the conference room. This entire thing was bothering him and the bombshell that Leon had just dropped wasn't helping. Neither was the fact that they had never found Private Jones. Perhaps his brother knew but given that he had come in to talk, made Gibbs think that it was highly unlikely. Either way, it was time to talk to Mr. Williams and his friend for some answers.

 

There was no way this man was older than twenty, Gibbs decided as he walked into the conference room to find Gilbert No-last-name with his feet on the table. He stared at them, waiting for the man to move them, but the albino glanced up at him from over his phone and then proceeded to ignore him. Matthew noticed the exchange and with a small sigh, turned around in the chair and shoved his friend's feet off the table. That got Gilbert's attention and he looked back up from his phone to glare briefly at the man who ignored it and had turned his attention to Gibbs, who nodded his head in thanks. The pair continued to openly study one another each forming their own opinions as Gibbs sat down, rearranging the notebook and file and pulled out a pen.

Their study of each other was not quite finished yet and the silence in the room was only broken by the occasional noise from Gilbert's phone. Suddenly, the man sitting across from him smiled softly, as if he had passed some sort of test and stuck out his hand. "Matthew Williams" he said softly.

"Agent Gibbs." Gibbs said reaching out his own hand to shake it.

"Gilbert Beilschmidt" came a heavily accented voice startling them both, and they turned slightly to stare at the man who had been so vocal in the hall. He didn't bother to spare either of them a glance, just offered a lazy half wave, his attention focused on the phone in his hand.

Gibbs turned his attention back to Matthew, who was now shaking his head with a fond smile. He waited until he was sure that he had the young man's attention before pointedly looking from Matthew to Gilbert, and back again with one eyebrow raised clearly asking why the other man was here.

"Well umm…" Matthew began, stuttering slightly with a light pink coming into his cheeks, "He's ummm…." The man was clearly uncomfortable and embarrassed by the question but managed to get out a rushed "He's my partner" and a shocked, and defiantly awkward silence filled the room. It was broken after a few moments, as a strange hissing sound that Gibbs quickly realized was Gilbert's laughter filled the room. Gilbert paused for breath and managed to gasp out "I ahm so telling Francis hyu said that," his accent making the words near incomprehensible. After a few more minutes of laughter and labored breathing, Gilbert returned his attention to his phone and a very red faced Matthew was looking everywhere but at the two other people in the room.

Gibbs cleared his throat, getting Matthew to look at him again. "What took you so long to come to talk to us? Did you know that your brother was missing for a month?"

Matthew sighed and visibly deflated, the blush coming back under control. "Yeah, I knew." He said softly. "Al and I have a deal. Anytime he's coming back, he calls, and then calls when he gets here. He called to let me know he was coming home tomorrow, about a month ago and I haven't heard from him sense."

"Then why did it take you so long to come into NCIS?"

"Because my brother has a large number of hangouts across the country. When he didn't call me within the two days that it would take for him to get back, I got worried, so Gilbert and I drove up to Alaska, flew down to Hawaii, flew back into California and have been making our way through the rest of the states. We still actually have a few places to check, some in the DC area and a few more up the coast a bit. The last one is in Maine, and if we don't find him there then we were going to head home."

"Your brother has hangouts in all of the states?" He asked surprised, to which Matthew nodded hesitantly.

"Do you have a list?"

"Yes, but I don't think I can give it to you."

"Why?"

"It's classified" At that Gibbs looked up at Matthew, who offered a sheepish smile.

"Its Classified?"

"Yes."

"Who would I need to talk to, in order be read into this and see the list?"

Matthew was shocked by the question, but he tried not to show it. In reality that was a good question. Who would one need to talk to? "I don't know who you would need to talk to in the American Government." he said at last "Someone high up in the intelligence community, probably in your president's staff."

Gibbs stared at the man. He had been doing that a lot. It seemed that the answer to any question simply brought up even more questions. "Sure you don't have a name?"

"I'm sure" came the response, again with an apologetic shrug "and if I did I'm not sure I would be able to tell you."

"What does your brother do on his special assignments?" Gibbs asked

"I can't tell you that" came the answer and this time the quiet voice was firm.

"So you know what your brother does then?" Gibbs pushed, and Matthew's only response was to smile politely at him. That could mean anything, he decided and changed tracks. "Do your brother's special assignments have anything to do with what you consult on, in Canada?"

The response this time was a couple of blinks, and then Matthew spoke, all warmth and politeness gone from his voice "What I consult on and who it involves is also classified."

Gibbs sighed at that response, realizing that anything else along this topic would simply lead to more unanswered questions, or stonewalling. It was important though, Gibbs was sure, but asking about what the two did was not getting him anywhere so he switched topics again. "Why do you and your brother have different last names despite never having been married?"

"What?" came the slightly shocked response, as if the man had not expected him to go there. To be fair, he probably hadn't.

"Why do you and your bother have different last names?" Gibbs repeated, looking across the table. Matthew fidgeted slightly and glanced over at Gilbert, who looked at him from over his phone. After a moment of non-verbal communication, and one raised eyebrow from Gilbert, Matthew turned his attention back to Gibbs. "The simplest explanations is that when Al and I were teens, Alfred got into a fight with our guardian and ran away. That was the last name that he picked up when he left and I changed mine when I moved out"

Gibbs nodded and made a note on the paper to have one of his team check out this story and he moved on to the last question, and frankly the most uncomfortable. "Why do you think that your brother is still alive?"

There was a sharp intake of breath, that was let out in a sudden rush. Then Matthew asked in a cold voice "Excuse me?"

"Your brother has been missing for a month. Why do you think that he is still alive?"

"Because it's Alfred. He may be an uncultured, loud, stupid, idiot but he is my brother, and there is no way he is dead." Matthew paused for a moment before continuing. "The fact that you are asking means that you've found some evidence that you think proves that Alfred is dead, except something's missing or you would be telling me that you found his body, right?"

Gibbs just nodded at Matthew's assessment. For someone who was supposed to be a retired Canadian officer, he had a remarkable grasp of the inner workings of the American Law enforcement system. But Ducky's statement of how much blood had been lost stood out in his mind. And he trusted his team. But something was off. His gut was telling him as much. It had been telling him that something was wrong from the first time he had seen the man.

"Then damn your evidence." Matthew said with a passion "My brother is alive."

"If you don't think he is dead, do you think that he was kidnapped?" Gibbs asked, not having thought of it before.

Matthew paused, giving the question some consideration. "No, I don't think Al was kidnapped, but knowing him, it's entirely possible" he answered.

Gibbs nodded. "Does your brother's disappearance have anything to do with his special assignments?"

"Maybe?" Matthew shrugged. "I don't think so, but it's Al." He said as if that explained everything and to him, it probably did. At that comment, Gilbert snorted but one could not tell if it was in agreement to it or for something else entirely. It had the additional bonus of reminding the others that he was still in the room. He had been quiet for far to long and Ludwig would have been impressed, but now he needed to move.

"That's all of the questions that I have for now." Gibbs said, much to Gilbert's relief and all three men stood to go. "We'll call if we have anymore questions or find anything out."

Matthew nodded, and Gilbert bounced with impatience. "Ah, wait a second" Matthew said rooting in his pocket for something. Pulling out a pen and a piece of paper he quickly scribbled down a number, which he handed to Gibbs. "You'll probably have better luck reaching me here at this number"

Gibbs looked at the number, nodded, and placed it into his pocket. Then opening the door, he gestured for the two men to go first.

 

"Gil" Matthew began as they walked down the hall, "You're not really going to tell Francis are you?"

Gilbert just looked at his friend and burst out laughing and stopping in the middle of the hall. Gibbs would have run into him, if Matthew had not pulled him along and out of the way. When he had himself under control, he stood up straight and proclaimed "Course, I ahm."

Matthew looked utterly terrified by this idea. "Gilbert!" he squeaked

"He will be so excited that his frère is growing up, and experiencing the joys of la amour and all that pansy shit."

"Gilbert!"

"Oh, fine Mattie. I probably wont tell Francis."

"Probably?"

"Yeah probably" Gil said as they turned the corner walking to where the desks were. Matthew opened his mouth to reply when Gibbs spoke up interrupting the conversation, "Wait here, while I get an agent to show you two out."

Matthew nodded to show that he had heard but Gilbert grumbled. They weren't children.

"Gilbert," Matthew said exasperated, as Gibbs walked into his team's area. They all quickly walked away from McGee's desk. That meant that they had seen the questioning. Good. It meant that he wouldn't have to explain anything. "David, escort them out please."

She simply nodded, but Tony looked as if he was about to complain. "DiNozzo" he warned, and Tony's mouth shut with a snap and he sat back down at his desk.

"Mr. Williams, are you and your friend ready to go?" Ziva asked the soft-spoken man who was looking puzzled at the moment. He nodded lost in thought, muttering to himself. She stepped a little closer to hear what he was saying. "David…" He was saying her last name. Why? "Mr. Williams?" She asked again.

"Yes?" He asked looking up at her.

"Are you ready to go?"

"Ah, yes." He began, following her towards the elevator. "By any chance, are you Eli's daughter?"

Ziva stopped and turned to look at the man in shock. "How do you" she began but was interrupted by something blaring obnoxious music. Almost everyone in the room turned to look for the source of the noise, but Matthew just rolled his eyes and said "Gil, pick up your damn phone"

Everyone turned to look at the albino who was smirking at the amount of confusion that he had just caused. Enjoying the attention, Gilbert pulled out the phone tapping the screen to see what had caused it. The source of the problem was a text message, but not from a number he knew, and he raised an eyebrow in confusion. He was silent as he read the message, and most everyone returned to what they had been doing, consequently missing what happened next. As he read, Gilbert's face froze and wiped clean of emotion. "Matthew." His accent had grown even stronger, and Ziva could barely make out what was being said. "Ve haf to go. Now." Ziva didn't have to understand what was said to understand something was wrong as Gilbert all but dragged Matthew towards the elevator leaving Ziva to catch up.

The team watched as the doors slid closed, on Gilbert was furiously typing on his phone, and Ziva and Matthew had resumed their conversation. The silence was only interrupted by Tony's question of "Who put a burr under his saddle?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who dont know, Gilbert Beilschmidt is the exNation of Prussia, Matthew Williams is the Nation of Canada, and Alfred F. Jones is the United States of America.
> 
> Translations:  
> Vögelchen: Birdie  
> Bruder: Brother


	4. The difference between Interrogation and Conference rooms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story can also be found on Fanfiction.net by the same name, though I go by Kneoria over there.
> 
> Pairings: None/Cannon and PruCan if you squint. If I managed to write it right, that is.
> 
> Warnings: Language, UST, possible Out of Character moments, and random references to other fandoms that the Audience may not understand. Apologies for incomprehensible accents. Set after Jenny Shepard's death, but before Eli David's. This is a Triple crossover between NCIS, NCIS: LA, and Hetalia: Axis Powers
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters belong to their respective owners. I simply play with them for my, and your amusement.

There was silence in the darkened room as a man typed furiously on a keyboard.

"What the hell is this supposed to mean?" a voice asked breaking it.

"I don't know. Its not anything that I recognize" another voice stated.

"Does hero mean anything to anyone?" A feminine voice asked.

"Nope" was the response from the last voice, popping the p.

"And what the hell is a code 484569?" the first voice asked.

Everyone in the room shrugged and the silence returned. Even the man typing was quite. "Guys I got it!" he said after a second

"Well where is it?" the first man asked

"The phone's now at a bench right by the Santa Monica Pier. Umm the message…"

"Spit it out Eric," said the second voice.

Eric swallowed. "It went to a phone on the third floor of the NCIS building in the Naval yard in DC."

Disbelief met that remark. "Its where?"

"In D.C." Eric repeated, already reaching for the phone "I'll call McGee"

"Put it on speaker," Callan advised. "Kensi, Deeks, go find our guy."

"What about you and Sam?" Kensi asked

"We'll talk to D.C."

 

That was definitely weird, McGee decided. The questions that they needed the answers to were all classified. That and the fact that he was hacking into the CIA to get information that should be readily available. That was just a tad bit overboard on their part. Suddenly his phone rang distracting him from his thoughts.

"Hello, NCIS Special Agent Timothy McGee speaking"

"Hey McGee, its Eric. Listen; there is a dude on your floor that just got a text message. Don't let him leave."

McGee raised an eyebrow. "To late for that Eric. The guy just got into the elevator."

"Well who's with him?"

"Ziva"

"Then tell her not to let him he is, he has contacts to terrorists."

The last bit of the sentence was what caught McGee's attention and his entire demeanor changed from one of curiosity to one of deadly seriousness. "I'll shut down the base and see if there is anything else I can do. Want to talk to Gibbs?"

"That would be nice, Agent McGee" Callan said, speaking up for the first time.

"Hey Agent Callen, Give me just a moment." McGee said as he put his hand over the mouthpiece. "Boss!"

"What McGee?"

"LA is on the phone and needs to talk to you. I'm shutting down the base."

Gibbs raised an eyebrow at the last statement, as he stuck out his hand for the phone.

"Terrorists" Was McGee's explanation as he handed the phone over.

 

Ziva was in shock. Mr. Williams knew her father. Or to be accurate, a friend of his worked with her father a lot, so they had met a couple of times. And he seemed to know a couple of people high up in the American intelligence community as well. Ziva was pretty sure that it was not normal for such an unassuming man to know so many powerful people. Just who was he? Who was his friend for that matter? He had come in acting like he owned the place but ever since he had gotten the phone message he started to act differently. He had typed out a single message on his own phone, sent it and then put it away. All the nervous energy that he had been bouncing with earlier was now being contained, and focused. It was unnerving to see this man acting like someone with her training, instead of the college student he appeared to be. The elevator reached the bottom floor, jolting her out of her thoughts. The doors rolled open and Ziva stepped out. The moment she did, her phone vibrated, alerting her to a message. She glanced at it, whipped around and drew her gun, as Gilbert and Matthew were exiting the elevator. "I'm sorry." She said training her gun on them "But you can't leave."

Matthew, as he had repeatedly told her to call him, simply raised an eyebrow and an expression of confusion settled on his face. But he complied and stepped back into the elevator. He gave Gilbert's jacket a tug as he did so but Gilbert remained where he was, staring at her, his own face blank. Another tug and a muttered "Gil", and the man relented stepping back inside the elevator. Ziva followed and pressed the button for floor three, keeping her back to the panel watching them, watching Gilbert in specific. His eyes hadn't left her face and she stared right back. After a few moments, Ziva blinked, and Gilbert grimaced slightly. "Schisse" he said and directed his attention to the silver doors in front of him.

"Gil?" Matthew asked, and Ziva looked at him. There was no way he was a terrorist. She still had trouble believing that he had been one of the Mounties. "What's going on?"

"Dein Bruder ist ein idiot" was all Gilbert would say.

Matthew leaned against the elevator wall next to him. "Yes, well we know that." He paused. "This is all his fault then?"

"Ja." Was the response, and the elevator was silent the rest of the way up.

 

Gilbert propped his feet up on the table and started to tap his fingers as he stared into the mirror on the wall opposite to where he was sitting. He was bored. They had taken his phone and stuck him in here. Nothing much to do but sit, tap and study the room. It was a boring room. An interrogation room he realized, and not the more comfortable conference room that he and Matt had been in earlier.

It had been a while since he had been in one of these, Gilbert mused. Not since Russia, if his memory was correct. Hopefully that wasn't what this was about. He hated Russia, that goddamned bastard. He hated everything about that person, that place, and he was not going to remember that. There was something funny though. He had gotten rescued. Thanks to a couple of Americans, of all people. They had rescued him, and they hadn't even known who he was. Then he told them the last name he had used, and they had gotten him to his brother. The agents didn't know the full extent of that they had saved him from or what they had done for him, getting him out of there. But it didn't change that Gilbert had owed them one. Three months later, once he was as recovered as he could be with his land still under Russia's control, Gilbert had tracked them down. It had been really amusing to crash their op and help them take out their target. Oh the looks on their faces, when he did. Gilbert couldn't help it; he started laughing at the memory. Those were good times. The laughter died down into a smirk as Gilbert continued to remember. He had stuck around with the agents for a while, helping out and saving them once or twice, getting his revenge in at the same time.

It had been strange to see Leon again, Gilbert thought, holding the smile. He hadn't seen the man since before the wall fell, and he had no clue what had happened to Eli, but damn Leon got old fast. He'd also done well for himself as far as Gilbert could tell. The looks people had given him as he tried to figure out who the guy was told him he was important. And old. Couldn't forget that. That was the problem with getting to know people he reminded himself. You got to know them, you started to care, and stuck around. Normal people aged. He, Matthew, Alfred and the rest of them didn't.

And that was a problem. But not one that related to this particular problem as long as he remembered that he didn't know Leon or Eli. And his name had never been Johan. Nope, not a problem at all, Gilbert decided. This problem was all Alfred's fault, the asshole. He had gone and done something stupid, sending that text from a different phone number. It definitely wasn't his and was probably the reason that he was now in this mess. Stupid. But then he and Matt had known that Alfred was probably caught up in something when he disappeared a month ago.

At least the ass had warned him about his problem. That was nice. Gilbert had already alerted Ludwig and Westen would alert everyone else so they would know to ditch their phones until the next meeting. Which was in a month or so. The location, time, and date had already been predetermined, thanks to his brother, and so no worries there. Just a lot of hassle in getting everything redone. Nothing could be done from here, so all Gilbert had to do was wait until someone showed up to talk to him. Just wait, that was all. Gilbert huffed in annoyance. He wasn't good at waiting. He could do it, he just wasn't good at it. They had taken his phone, which was another clue that it was something about the text message, but he was bored. Bored of sitting, bored of waiting. He had done enough of both already today. Gilbert stared harder at the window, and the tapping of his fingers ceased. There didn't appear to be anyone there, and even if there was he didn't care. They would only get to experience his awesome. With that thought in mind, Gilbert pushed away from the table and began to rock out to whatever random music that he could think of, complete with bad singing.

 

Behind the window, two agents stared at the man Agent Gibbs had brought into interrogation.

"What the hell is he doing?" one of them asked

The other shrugged "I have no idea"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Introducing the cast of NCIS LA!
> 
> Translations:  
> Schisse: Shit  
> Dein Bruder ist ein idiot: Your brother is an idiot  
> Ja: Yes


	5. Ancient History

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story can also be found on Fanfiction.net by the same name, though I go by Kneoria over there.
> 
> Pairings: None/Cannon and PruCan if you squint. If I managed to write it right, that is.
> 
> Warnings: Language, UST, possible Out of Character moments, and random references to other fandoms that the Audience may not understand. Apologies for incomprehensible accents. Set after Jenny Shepard's death, but before Eli David's. This is a Triple crossover between NCIS, NCIS: LA, and Hetalia: Axis Powers
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters belong to their respective owners. I simply play with them for my, and your amusement.

The reason that no one of importance was watching the spectacle in interrogation was simply because the whole team was currently sitting up in MTAC per Agent Callen's request. They were sitting in front of the screen, listening as Agents Callen and Hanna filled them in on their latest op, which was tracking down a terrorist cell and finding out who their suppliers were.

"So we had been tracking that phone for a week or so, looking at the messages, because we had intel that said the owner moved money for the cell. Yesterday at eight AM Pacific time we lost the phone. It turned off, and the owner conveniently disappeared. Today, a few minutes ago, it turned on, sent this text message, and then we lost the signal again. We traced the GPS of the phone's last location to a park in LA and the message to you guys. Kensi and Deeks are on their way to the park right now to see if they can find it or the owner." Callen finished. "Who was it that got the text in your building anyways?" he asked curiously.

"The significant other of the brother of a missing, presumably dead Marine. He didn't say much to any of us, mostly just talked to his friend. Although…" Tony said, pausing at the end to glance at the Director. "He had a strange reaction when he saw Director Vance."

"Really," Sam said, then asked, "Strange how?"

"He was confused when he first saw him, then he appeared to recognize the Director, and then he seemed surprised, as if he hadn't expected to see him there." Tony said, shrugging in a what-can-you-do gesture.

"Do you know him, Director?" Callen asked

"Maybe." Vance said, not really wanting to go into details.

Hetty, Callen, Sam, and Eric just stared at him. "Care to explain, Director?" Hetty asked, and Vance sighed. He didn't, really, but it might be important, so he began.

"Twenty years ago, my partner and I rescued a man by the name of Johan Günter from where he was being held prisoner in Russia. He was heavily injured, but we managed to get him back to Germany. Three months later, he showed up completely healed in the middle of another op, and helped us take down several Soviet spies."

"Ah," Hetty said, realizing whom they were talking about now. When people looked at her in confusion, she elaborated. Barely. "Your albino mystery."

There was a pause and Vance continued with a "Yes. Anyways, the man who got the text message, Gilbert Beilschmidt, looks exactly like he did, minus a couple of scars that Johan had."

Eric had picked up the tablet and begun typing in names as they were mentioned. A ping from his computer stopped him, and he tapped on the newly arrived email. "I just sent the file," McGee said, looking at Eric, who then pulled up the information on the screen for everyone over there to see. "Anyways, Mr. Beilschmidt has a record. A sealed juvie one, a couple of drunk stunts, and a couple of nights in jail, but nothing that screams terrorist. He got good grades in primary through secondary school, but his attendance was spotty all the way through. He went to an art college to learn sculpting, and apparently never showed up for any of his general classes, but passed them all with high scores. He moved to Ottawa from Berlin after a fight with his brother, and opened up his own contemporary art shop. He's relatively well known in the regional modern art scene and makes decent money for what he does. Every few months he'll close for a week or two and travel somewhere, probably looking for inspiration or something. Anyway, as far as Russia, Germany, and the CIA are concerned, Johan Günter doesn't exist. I figured out one of the dates earlier, Director, and pulled up the NCIS, CIA, and German reports. In the American files, any mention to a third or in some cases fourth member of the team is simply referred to as A German Intelligence Officer. The Germans did the same, only they called him Our Man, or Our Officer, or something similar. Copies of the reports I could find are in there too. Whoever Günter was, they were trying to protect his identity and did an excellent job of it."

The room fell silent as the LA agents scanned the files. Hetty humphed when she saw the picture of Gilbert. "That young man," she said, "is the spitting image of my albino bastard. He's missing a couple of scars, though, and has some new ones too."

Everyone looked at her, and Hetty stared right back. Finally Sam asked, "Your albino bastard?"

She sighed and then said, "Ulric Recke was his name. He was a German ex-military officer that abandoned me in Romania because he had family issues."

"Got them!" Eric exclaimed, replacing Gilbert's file with the current investigation, and again the DC agents waited as patiently as they could for the LA agents to catch up. It didn't take long, as Sam barely glanced at the name before exclaiming, "Alfred is missing?"

"You know him?" Ziva asked curiously.

"Yeah. He was in one of the last classes that I trained." Sam said. "He's a crack shot, followed orders even if he didn't agree with them, is great in a fight, could take a beating, had a pair of lucky glasses that he didn't need, and pair of lucky sunglasses; he called both pairs Texas. He liked to joke around, but sometimes his pranks could go too far. Alfred could be the most loved or hated person in the class at any given time, but no one ever held a grudge against him. The kid had amazing survival instincts, which really came in handy as he had no sense of direction, even with a map, but he always somehow ended up in the right place at the right time."

"So you don't think he's dead then." Gibbs said.

Sam didn't even pause. "Did you find a body?"

"No."

"Then no, I doubt he's dead. He had something of a reputation for getting out of impossible situations with only a scratch."

"We found 2 liters of blood at the crime scene."

"Mm," was Sam's only response.

"We'll question Beilschmidt and let you know what we find out." Gibbs said.

"Alright, Gibbs," Callen said "We'll keep working on the terrorists from our end."

A nod and then a jerk of a hand signaled the end of the conversation. As Gibbs turned away, he heard Eric say "Guys, the phone's back!" and Callen's response of "Call Kensi" before the screen took on its normal offline color scheme. Tony and Ziva had already left, racing to see who could get to the interrogation room first. McGee waited a moment to hand Gibbs a printed version of what he had found on Beilschmidt before heading off to Abby's lab. Tony and Ziva could watch the interrogation, but he had work to do.

 

The normal reaction to being left alone in an interrogation room was generally some form of nervousness. Every person had a different reaction, and in his line of work, he had seen a lot of them. But this reaction, Gibbs thought as he opened the door to the interrogation room, was in a class of its own.

The suspect, Gilbert Beilschmidt, was dancing on the table and singing something in German. Badly. Suddenly, he stopped, as if he had just realized that there was someone else in the room with him. He whipped his head around to look. Blue eyes met red again, and Gibbs raised an eyebrow at Gilbert, who had a lazy smirk growing across his face. The staring contest didn't end even as Gibbs walked to the table. Gilbert jumped down from said table, landing lightly despite the combat boots he was wearing. They both grabbed their respective chairs and sat down at exactly the same moment, but Gibbs's attention was now on the folder in his hand. The silence in the room was only interrupted by the occasional flipping of pages.

Gibbs ignored Gilbert's stares until he realized that the man was reading him, or trying to anyways. Normally, that was a habit that a person had picked up as a street kid, and it would have been lost by now. But reading people was a good skill to have, and since when had anything been normal about this case anyway? Gibbs flipped through the pages one last time. Nothing new jumped out at him, so now it was time to get the boring questions out of the way.

"You are Gilbert Beilschmidt?" Gibbs began, phrasing it more as a statement than a question, but Gilbert answered anyway.

"Yes."

"Mr. Beilschmidt, what are you doing in D.C?"

"Gilbert." He said, completely relaxed. "'Mr. Beilschmidt' is mien bruder. Und I am here to help Matt look for his. "

Gibbs just "Hm"ed in response, jotting Gilbert's answer down on the notepad before continuing on to the next question.

 

"Kensi?" came the voice over the phone. "Where are you right now?"

"On the way back from the park. We didn't see anyone suspicious or who looked like the suspect. Find something?" she asked, putting the phone on speaker.

"Yeah. The phone came back online. It's not doing anything, but we got a new location from it. It's in Santa Monica."

"It's where?"

"You heard me."

Kensi nodded at Deeks, who changed lanes abruptly to get to Freeway 10 heading toward Santa Monica. "Is it moving?" she asked.

"Hasn't been for a couple of minutes, so the guy should still be there."

"Where is 'there,' exactly?"

"Is it on the Pier?" Deeks piped up from the driver's seat.

"No, but it's right in that area, near Arcadia Terrace."

"Alright," Kensi said, "we're on our way. May take a while because Deeks drives like a grandma."

Deeks protested, but was ignored in favor of Callen cutting in. "Well, let us know when you get there."

"Will do." Kensi said as she hung up the phone.

"I," Deeks said again, "do not drive like a Grandma."

"Says the man going 55 on a freeway with a limit of 65."

"You've gotta watch for the traffic patterns!" Deeks said, then grinned. "You go with the flow."

Kenzi just groaned.

 

"McGee, how old is the suspect?"

"Mid to late twenties, Abby." McGee said not even looking up from what he was typing into the computer.

"And what does he do?"

"Metalworking artist." McGee paused as he finished inputting the data. All he would have to do now was wait and help Abby out.

"Does he have any interest in ancient languages?"

"Not that I know of," McGee said, coming to stand beside her. "Why?"

"Because these text messages are hinky, McGee!" she said, throwing her hands up into the air, and McGee just looked at her. She thrust one had at the paper on the table in front of them. "This is the message that Beilschmidt received. Very cryptic, very vague, and not giving any clue at all as to what a code 484569 is or to what WC2KA2WY2CA means."

"Okay…" McGee said, not really seeing where his friend was going with this. She sighed and pointed at the other paper on the table.

"This message is the message Beilschmidt sent. It's obviously in another language, and the only thing the same is this number sequence. The man is German, so that's the highest possibility for the language that it should be, but some of these words don't even exist in modern German."

"Ancient German then?" McGee asked, now thoroughly confused. Gilbert's records had not shown that the man had any interest in any history. In fact, according to his transcripts, history had been his worst subject throughout his schooling.

"Really ancient German, like in the time when Germany was just a bunch of smaller countries, and the Kingdom of Prussia had just been started."

"That's really weird," McGee agreed. "Any luck on actually translating it?"

"I'm working on it. I can only go so fast, you know." Abby looked up and realized that McGee was right behind her for the first time. "Why aren't you tracing the message?"

"I am. The data is in the computer. I'm just waiting for it to tell me something," McGee explained as the computer let out a beep. Abby made shooing motions and McGee hurried over to the computer and let out a groan.

"What's wrong?" Abby asked, not looking up from her almost finished translation.

"The message pinged off a couple of satellites and is now running through a couple of proxy servers. The noise was an alert to a dead end." McGee said and the computer dinged again. He returned his attention to it and started typing furiously as Abby returned to her translation.

After a few minutes of nothing but typing and muttered words, two voices simultaneously exclaimed "I got it!" and the owners looked up at each other, both eager to tell the other the news of their discovery. Abby waited as McGee glanced back at the computer and frowned. "I've almost got it," he amended. "I managed to get it past the set of proxy servers. It's tracing right now."

Abby was bouncing. "I translated the message. It's really weird, and I feel like I've read it…" she stopped mid-sentence. "McGee!"

"What? I'm listening." McGee said, looking at her.

"No, McGee, the trace!"

"What about it?"

"Look at it!"

"Okay, okay looking!"

There was silence. "Is that what I think it is?" Abby asked hesitantly.

"If you think that that's the Bundestag, then yes." McGee said. "Specifically, the higher offices of the Bundestag."

"It's narrowing down to a specific office right now!" Abby pointed out, and the two watched the signal narrow to a hallway by some very important offices. Suddenly, there was a noise and the computer flashed an error screen displaying the message "Connection lost." Both of them stared at the screen in disappointment.

"What were you saying, Abby?" McGee finally asked staring at the screen in dismay.

"Oh, right. I was saying that I feel like I've read that line somewhere before. I don't know where, and I still don't know what the other two things mean."

"Wait," McGee said. "You've seen it before?"

"Mmhm. I think so anyways. But not the codes, just the text. "

"That's really strange, Abby."

"Yeah, I know. Give me a moment to think," Abby said, and McGee obliged. The lab fell into silence again, save for the whirring of machines.

After a few moments of this silence, McGee spoke up. "Hey Abby?"

"Yeah?"

"I need a copy of your translation. I have to talk to Gibbs."

Abby nodded and made her way over to the printer where she grabbed a couple of sheets of paper. "Here you go," she said, holding them out to him.

"Thanks," McGee said, grabbing the papers. "I gotta tell Gibbs." He turned to leave.

He managed to make it to the door before Abby called out, "McGee! I remembered!"

McGee turned to face his friend. "Really?"

"Yeah. My archaeological friend found a series of old German diaries in a monastery a couple of years ago. That line is a direct quote from one of the books."

"How does a man who apparently does not have an interest in history know about that?"

"I have no idea but that's not the important part!"

"What's the important part?"

"Well, it's a warning, only it's a really vague warning and doesn't say anything outright."

"Alright, I'll tell Gibbs," McGee said and left the lab with Abby calling after him.

"Highway patrol found a car 5 miles from the house that they think may have been used to cart Samson and/or the body and brought it over. I'll be in the garage if you guys need me."

"Right," McGee said as the elevator doors closed.

 

"Ziva?" McGee said in confusion as he walked into observation. "I thought you went to go keep an eye on Mr. Williams."

"He has met my father," she replied, not turning from the window. "Gibbs thought it would be best to get Tony to watch him."

"Ah." McGee nodded. "Has he started actually interrogating him yet? I need to talk to him."

"So far, he has been confirming the information that is in the record."

"Great," McGee said and walked back out of the room and into the hall, Ziva following. She stood slightly behind him as McGee knocked on the door to interrogation and opened it.

 

Gibbs put down the pen that he had been writing with and glanced at the pad. It was full of his impressions and gueses signifying that the information in the file was correct. He was about to start asking questions that he really wanted the answers to when someone knocked and the door to interrogation opened. He looked up at the door in annoyance and McGee poked his head in. "Boss?" the agent said hesitantly. "Found something."

Gibbs nodded and stood, grabbing the file and paper that he had written on before walking out of the room and shutting the door behind him. "Well, McGee, this had better be good."

"It is. Beilschmidt is better connected than we thought. That text message he sent? It was routed through several proxy servers and satellites…"

"McGee."

"Sorry, boss. I managed to trace the phone to the area of the Bundestag where the higher offices are, but it dropped out before I could I could trace it to anyone in specific."

"That it?"

"No, boss. Abby managed to translate the message our suspect sent. It's a quote from an obscure German manuscript, even though his records show no interest in that area. Abby also wanted to apologize for not being able to decode the message that he received or tell what a Code 484569 is supposed to be."

Gibbs nodded. It was annoying that McGee had not been able to find out exactly whom Beilschmidt had sent the message to, but knowing that they were high in the German government was almost as good. Abby's information was also interesting, but together, they only added to his gut feeling that something was off. All things considered, though, they hadn't done a bad job. "Good work, you two," he finally said before taking the papers offered to him and slipping them into the folder. He nodded at McGee and Ziva again before turning around and reentering the interrogation room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you like it, please leave a review. If you didn't, please tell me why not. If you have questions ask away. If you found a typo or accent mistake please point it out so that I can fix it.


	6. Lost things found

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story can also be found on Fanfiction.net by the same name, though I go by Kneoria over there.
> 
> Pairings: None/Cannon and PruCan if you squint. If I managed to write it right, that is.
> 
> Warnings: Language, UST, possible Out of Character moments, and random references to other fandoms that the Audience may not understand. Apologies for incomprehensible accents. Set after Jenny Shepard's death, but before Eli David's. This is a Triple crossover between NCIS, NCIS: LA, and Hetalia: Axis Powers
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters belong to their respective owners. I simply play with them for my, and your amusement.

They had finally arrived in Santa Monica. Honestly, Deeks's driving wasn't that bad, but traffic was, and it had taken them longer than the estimated time to get here. Surveying the park, Kensi noticed that there was still nothing out of the ordinary happening nor was there anyone who matched the description of their suspect. Pulling out her phone, she called ops. "Hey," she said into the phone. "We're here, I don't see anyone or anything unusual, except the person standing next to me." Deeks stuck out his tongue and she rolled her eyes at him. "Where are we relative to the phone?"

"It should be within 500 yards in front of you, Kenz," Callen said.

"Hey, Callen, what did DC have to say?" she asked, looking around the area again. Still nothing odd. A park worker emptied trashcans; people walked, skated, or rode their bikes. Deeks had moved slightly ahead of her, strolling along looking at the ground to see if anyone had dropped the phone.

"The text message went to a phone in the NCIS building in DC. The man who got it has a connection to a case that they are working on right now. They filled us in and they sent their files over. Sam and I are going through them to see if it has any real connection to our case other than the text message."

"Alright," Kensi said. Pausing a moment, she called to Deeks, "Find anything?" He shook his head. "Is it still here?" she asked Callen.

"Yeah, you should be…" he stopped and Kensi could hear someone in the background saying something, but she couldn't make it out. "Never mind, Eric says it's moving again."

"Where's it going?"

"North."

"'Kay," Kensi answered and nodded at Deeks, pointing in the right direction with one hand. Deeks nodded back a confirmation and started going that direction, actively looking for their suspect or a phone. He didn't even try to blend in. Kensi followed slightly behind him. "Is it going fast?" she asked after a few minutes.

"No, it's stopped again just up ahead."

"Let me know when I'm close," she said into the phone and continued walking. This was beginning to annoy her. They were having no luck finding suspicious people, their suspect had managed to stay one step ahead of them the entire time, and they couldn't even catch up to him.

"Stop!" Callen said.

"What?" Kensi asked.

"You're right on it."

Kensi looked into the alley she had stopped next to, having not seen anything else indicating the presence of the suspect or his phone. The only thing around that could remotely be of interest was the set of dumpsters halfway down the alley. "Here, Callen? Are you sure it's here?"

"Yeah, why?"

"No one is here except beach-goers, and not a single one of them resemble our suspect."

"Well, according to the signal, you're basically right on top of it. I'll have Eric call it. Give me a moment."

"Alright," Kensi said, "but there really is nothing here except the dumpster I'm standing next to." A pause, then Kensi swore as a cheerful little tune filled the ally. "Damn it."

"It's in the dumpster?" Callen asked sympathetically.

"It's in the dumpster," Kensi confirmed. Walking to the alley's entrance, she yelled, "Deeks! Found it!"

Callen sighed. "Come on back when you get it," he said

"Right." Kensi agreed and then hung up.

"You found it?" Deeks said, walking back to his partner.

"Yeah."

"Alright!" Deeks exclaimed. "Where is it?"

Kensi snickered and pointed down the alleyway. In the silence she could still hear the phone ringing from the dumpster. She may have had a problem going through trash, but Deeks was much worse about that aspect of their job. The look on his face was priceless. "You're kidding," Deeks said, his voice pleading. "If that was a joke, it wasn't funny. Please tell me that that was a joke."

Kensi shook her head. "No joke, partner. It's in there."

Deeks groaned and pulled a pair of gloves from his pocket.

 

Matthew was worried. He could lie and say he wasn't, but he had been repeatedly informed that he was a bad liar. He wished he could just lose himself in the Alfred Hitchcock conversation like the NCIS agent that was watching him could. Tony DiNozzo was what he had introduced himself as, and he had achieved the American Dream. The man was descended from Italian immigrants. He appeared to be well off, and was a rich man turned cop like a character from a Hollywood movie. And he was obsessed with movies. Yep, Matthew thought in momentary amusement, Tony DiNozzo is definitely one of my brother's people. And the thought would have been even more amusing and the conversation would have been more interesting if he weren't so worried. Why had they needed to talk to Gilbert anyways? Why had Gilbert told him his brother was an idiot? Had he actually called him an Idiot? Matthew wasn't sure, as his German was not that good, but it was likely. Actually, the better question was, what had Alfred done that Gilbert was calling him an idiot?

"Hey, are you okay?" A voice asked and Matthew looked up to see Tony looking concerned. "You kinda zoned out there."

"I'm fine." Matthew said and at Tony's look, he amended the statement. "Well, I'm worried. Why did you guys need to talk to Gilbert again?"

Tony shrugged. "If I knew, I wouldn't be able to tell you."

Matthew nodded. "I figured as much, but it doesn't hurt to ask."

Tony nodded his agreement and they fell into an uncomfortable silence that was quickly interrupted by a phone ringing. Both men patted at their pockets and it didn't take long for them to realize that it was Matthew's phone. He pulled it out and stared at the number. Why did Francis always call at the worst times? "Can I take this?" he asked Tony quickly. At the agent's nod, Matthew flipped open the phone. "Bonjour, Francis. Comment ça va?"

"Matteiu!" came the apparently surprised reply. "Mon ami!" The obnoxious French voice continued, shock changing into relief. That was strange. Why was Francis worried? He didn't get much time to ponder as Francis continued in his normal excitable voice. Matthew winced and held the phone a little bit away from his ear, and Francis's voice spilled out into the room. "Je suis ravi de t'entendre. Je vais bien, merci de t'en inquiéter. J'aurai aimé continuer notre discussion mais nous avons un problème." 

"Un problème?" Matthew repeated in confusion.

"Oui. Reste près de notre ami en commun. Il peut t'aider à te sortir de là."

"Francis, qu'est-ce qui ce passe?"

"Un code a été activé."

"Un code? Lequel?"  
"Regarde ton portable. Ecoute, Gil a déjà fait ça avant donc reste près de lui, okay ? Je dois partir. On se voit dans un moi!"

"Francis, si te plait, quoi… non, t'inquiète pas. Tu expliqueras celui à moi plus tard n'est-ce pas?"

"Si je le dois."

"Je verrai me rappeler ce promet. Maintenant aller où tu besoin d'être avant tu es tard."

"Bientôt!" Francis ended the call abruptly. Matthew just stood there, confused. Francis said to check his phone, so Matt pulled up the only unread text. "Code 484569. CNA." Well that makes sense, Matthew thought dryly, trying to figure it out. Why did Francis call? Why had he been so relieved to hear from Matthew? What was going on? And was Alfred involved in all of this? Was this, whatever it was, the reason that he was missing?

"Hey, are you still okay?" Tony asked, interrupting Matthew's musings. "Your friend sounded rushed."

"Yeah," Matthew said softly. "I'm ok." But he didn't say anything else, simply continuing to stare at the phone.

"Who was that, anyway?" Tony asked. Matthew glanced at him, pocketing the phone. "Just curious," Tony defended, shrugging.

Matthew just nodded, his mind abuzz with other thoughts. "My cousin," he said absently, feeding Tony the cover story that he was using this time. "After our mom died, Alfred and I were split up. I was sent to live with our cousin in Canada for a couple of years. Alfred stayed with a different relative in Boston. My guardian had to leave however, so I went to live with Alfred. Francis and I stayed in touch, though, and we meet up periodically."

"That's cool," Tony said.

"Yeah. We don't get to see each other as often as we used to," Matthew said, thoughts whirling even faster inside his head. None of this made any sense to him, and it was making him panicky. He needed to stop talking about his "life" or something was going to slip. Right now, the best thing he could do for himself would be to re-examine everything he knew about this mess. Such a method had kept him calm during the wars so there was no reason it shouldn't help now. Matthew took a breath and focused his wandering thoughts. Let's see, he began. Alfred has been missing for a month. Gilbert and I have been looking for him for almost that long. We arrived in Washington D.C. just to find out that Al is not here and NCIS has been looking for him almost as long as we have. We came in to talk to them and learned that they think he's dead because there's a large amount of blood but no body. That probably means that Alfred did get hurt or die, but recovered quickly enough to leave before NCIS or the police got there. Gil got a text from a number he didn't know while we were leaving. That text made him freak out and he tried to get us to leave faster. NCIS then said that they couldn't let us leave and Gil called Al an idiot but didn't elaborate. They took Gil to interrogation and I was escorted here.

But why? Matthew wondered as he leaned back in his chair. Now that he had reaffirmed his facts, there were a lot of questions that needed answers, like why had Alfred gone missing in the first place? Why did NCIS need to interrogate Gilbert? Who sent Gilbert the text? Why had Gilbert caused Alfred an idiot this time? Why was Francis so worried? What is a Code 484569? Why was NCIS acting the way that they were acting? Matthew couldn't think of anything. The only possible thing that would get this reaction was if… he sat up straight and blinked hard, as the pieces fell into place. Alfred's disappearance. Gilbert's reaction. The name-calling. Francis's relief. Code 484569. Matthew let out a loud groan and placed his head on the table in front of him. Gilbert was right. Alfred was an idiot. "My God," he said in French, his native language slipping out as he gently knocked his head against the desk, letting the weight of the situation settle. "Mon frère est un foutu idiot. Il est le seul personne que je connais qui laissera un code 484569 se passer ensuit va et se résoudre d'être le foutre héro. Merde, merde, merde. Francis était correct. On avait un problème" Matthew said to himself and hit his head on the table a couple of times for good measure.

"Hey… are you sure you're ok?" Tony asked, clearly very confused.

Matthew turned red. He had completely forgotten where he was. Thankfully, his brother's people tended not to learn that many other languages, or otherwise what he had just said would have caused a lot of issues. But that wasn't the problem. He needed to go off the grid. But he couldn't. Not while he was here. And now he needed to think of something to tell the agent fast. "No, not really," Matthew agreed, finally settling for a half-truth. "I just remembered something important and because I didn't remember it sooner I may have screwed everything up for myself. But I don't know for sure, and all the worrying is giving me a headache."

Tony nodded in agreement. "That would suck. Do you want some water or something?"

"Yes, please. Water sounds good right now." Matthew said, still resting his head on the table.

"Alright, then," Tony said, walking out of the room. "I'll send someone in with it."

Well, that was interesting, Tony thought, shutting the door behind him and pointing at one of the agents nearby. "Agent Drew, get him some water and then stay in the room with him. I need to talk to Gibbs." Tony tapped his foot impatiently as he waited for the other agent to take his place at the door. Apparently Williams and therefore Beilschmidt knew more about the situation than they had let on, at least according to Williams's over excitable French cousin and his reaction. But that was all provided that he had understood the French correctly. It had been a couple of years, after all, and Canadian French had different slang. Either way, Gibbs needed to know this ASAP. Judging by the time, his boss would still be in interrogation with Beilschmidt, and if telling Gibbs meant until waiting until after the interrogation, that was just a bonus, in Tony's mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations: French thanks to Dark Void Princess 21 on Fanfiction.net
> 
> Bonjour, Francis. Comment ça va? - Hello Francis. How are you?
> 
> Mon ami! - My friend!
> 
> Je suis ravi de t'entendre. Je vais bien, merci de t'en inquiéter. J'aurai aimé continuer notre discussion mais nous avons un problème. - How lovely to hear from you again. I am doing well, thank you for asking. I wish I'd phoned to chat but we have a problem.
> 
> Un problème?: A problem?
> 
> Oui. Reste près de notre ami en commun. Il peut t'aider à te sortir de là.: Yes. Stay close to our mutual friend, okay? He can get you through this.
> 
> Francis, qu'est-ce qui ce passe?: Francis, what is going on?
> 
> Un code a été activé.:A code has been activated.
> 
> Un code? Lequel?:A code? Which one?
> 
> Regarde ton portable. Ecoute, Gil a déjà fait ça avant donc reste près de lui, okay ? Je dois partir. On se voit dans un moi!:Check your phone. Listen, Gil has done this before so stay close to him, alright? I have to go now. I'll see you in a month, yes?
> 
> Francis, si te plait, quoi… non, t'inquiète pas. Tu expliqueras celui à moi plus tard n'est-ce pas?:Francis, what… No, never mind. You'll explain this to me later right?
> 
> Si je le dois.:If I have to.
> 
> Je verrai me rappeler ce promet. Maintenant aller où tu besoin d'être avant tu es tard.:I will hold you to that promise. Now get going to wherever it is that you are going to before you are late.
> 
> Bientôt!:Goodbye.
> 
> Mon frère est un foutu idiot. Il est le seul personne que je connais qui laissera un code 484569 se passer ensuit va et se résoudre d'être le foutre héro. Merde, merde, merde. Francis était correct. On avait un problème - My brother is a goddamned idiot. He is the only one I know that would let a Code 484569 happen and then decide to go be a freaking hero. Shit, shit, shit. Francis was right. We do have a problem
> 
>  
> 
> If you like it, please leave a review. If you didn't, please tell me why not. If you have questions ask away. If you found a typo or accent mistake please point it out so that I can fix it.


	7. Annoying interuptions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story can also be found on Fanfiction.net by the same name, though I go by Kneoria over there.
> 
> Pairings: None/Cannon and PruCan if you squint. If I managed to write it right, that is.
> 
> Warnings: Language, UST, possible Out of Character moments, and random references to other fandoms that the Audience may not understand. Apologies for incomprehensible accents. Set after Jenny Shepard's death, but before Eli David's. This is a Triple crossover between NCIS, NCIS: LA, and Hetalia: Axis Powers
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters belong to their respective owners. I simply play with them for my, and your amusement.
> 
> Thank you to Ktwontwo for beta reading this story. If yall have a time, go check out her stuff if only because I'm the one who keeps feeding her plot bunnies.
> 
> This chapter occurs simultaneously as part of Chapter 5.

Ludwig Beilschmidt leaned his head back against the bulkhead of the train. Today was supposed to have been a good day. He had plans with a friend for dinner and drinks and better yet he had almost finished all his paper work. However all of his plans had gone down the drain and it only took an hour for the catastrophic failure to occur. He sighed and started going over the days events in his head, in hopes that it would give him some sort of clue as to what was going on.

 

It was 8:30 in the evening, and he was running late. Had he been another sort of man Ludwig would have groaned in annoyance, but that was not in his nature. Instead he simply frowned. He had initiated the trace 30 minutes ago and it had not returned yet. As much as he wanted to turn of the computer and let it sit until morning, he knew that it would be impossible. Especially as it concerned his brother. Leaving anything alone when dealing with Gilbert was just courting disaster. Why was anyone looking into his brother's cold war aliases anyway? He had thought the problems from that time were over and done with.

A soft ping sounded in the room surprising him and he ceased drumming his fingers. He glanced at the screen. Finally, he had results. Ludwig pulled them up and read once, then twice and closed it as he started to shut down the computer. Who the hell was NCIS? It sounded familiar and vaguely American. Ah well. Now that he knew who he was dealing with, he could leave it until tomorrow. A small agency like that wouldn't be able to cause that much trouble in one night. At least, that's what Ludwig tried to tell himself as he packed up. Why did that name sound familiar? Why were they asking about Johan Günter specifically? How did they even discover his existence? Those questions and more buzzed through his head like an angry swarm of bees hunting for one very specific flower. Ludwig wished it would stop. He was getting a migraine.

His wish was partially fulfilled as he locked the door. If he was remembering things correctly a NIS agent working with a Mossad operative had freed Gilbert from Russia during the Cold War, a fact that Ivan was still not happy about. Soon after that, NIS got a new director, budget, and name. If he remembered correctly, it was now NCIS. And Leon Vance, the NIS agent from that time was currently the director. Yes, the more he thought about it, the more he was sure that his information was correct and that meant that it was nothing to worry about. Someone was probably just researching his or her director's career and the name had probably been mentioned in passing. However the worry would not recede. What if they found something?

Enough, Ludwig told himself firmly. They wouldn't find anything. He knew that the name had been expunged from all of the records. He had done most of the expunging himself. There was no reason to act so paranoid. None at all. Right now, all he wanted to do was put this issue into a drawer and enjoy his dinner with his friend. He resolved to do exactly that when his phone went off.

What now? Ludwig wondered, as he pulled out his phone. The time flashed at him, once again reminding him that he was late. Well, if he was late, then this phone call would not be serious. In fact, it was probably just Feliciano worrying about him. Flipping the phone open Ludwig glanced at the number. The worry that he had just banished returned to settle in the pit of his stomach. This couldn't be good, if his brother was texting him. He pressed the center key and began reading the message.

 **Ich glaube nicht** , it began, **dass du dich daran erinnerst, aber als du jünger warst, nahm ich dich zur Seite und warnte dich über die Menschen. Ich erzählte dir davon wie sie sich von uns unterschieden und was sie tun konnten. Und du, als das leicht zu beeindruckende junge Ding das du warst, hast zugehört und dir diese Worte zu sehr zu Herzen genommen.**

Ludwig just shook his head at the puzzling text. He could only hope that this was his brother's idea of a prank. If it wasn't, well then… he needed a drink. Actually he needed to head home. On the plus side, Feliciano probably had already opened a bottle of wine. He read the last two lines of the message and nearly dropped his phone. **Code 484569. Cont. NAC – USA.**

Ludwig blinked, then scowled. He hoped that he had read that wrong. He risked another glance at the phone. Nope, the cryptic message was still there, followed by the ominous Code 484569. Shit. Ludwig thought as he forced his train of thought to the situation at hand. Moments ago he hadn't really cared about why NCIS was looking into his brother's past but now it had suddenly become crucial that he find out. Unfortunately, there were not many people that he could trust with the task of figuring out the connection between the Code and Johan because of what else they might find. In fact, that eliminated anyone who he normally worked with but Ludwig knew just who to call: Kiku Honda, his long time friend. He glanced at the time. It was early morning there, and Kiku might not be up yet. Better safe than sorry, Ludwig decided and sent a quick text. He could call later after he had spoken to his boss. The text sent, and Ludwig was able to breath easier. One problem solved, Ludwig thought in triumph as he made plans for what needed to be done next. First he would need to get his backup items out of his car. Activation of Code 484569, regardless of where it was supposedly contained to, meant that he had to assume that everything was compromised. His phone, his car, his job, and even his house were all on that list. Ludwig froze. Oh god, Feli was at his house. Ludwig shook his head. Feliciano would be safe there for the night at least, and then he would have to create new contingency plans. Ludwig left the building and walked down the street towards his boss's office, jabbing at the keypad as he went. The phone was answered on the third ring, much to his relief. "Veeee-" A soft voice breathed into the phone "You've reached the home of Doit, I mean Ludwig Beilschmidt. He's not here at the moment, can I take a message?"

"Feli, its me." Ludwig said, unable to hide the relief in his voice.

"Veeeh? Doitsu are you coming back yet? Cause the pasta is nowhere near done!"

Ludwig was momentarily distracted by that statement. Pasta? What did pasta have to do with anything? He was suddenly getting flashbacks to the first war. No. He could not think of that now. His friend's unhealthy obsession with carbohydrates was unimportant. "Nein, not yet. How are hyu settling in?"

"Very well Doitsu!" The person on the other end of the line chirped back at him. "I put my stuff in the room that I normally use."

"That's good. I ahm callink to let hyu know that sumtink came up und I haf to talk to my boss so I may be late."

"Really? That's too bad Doitsu. In that case, I won't start the noodles yet, just the sauce." Feliciano told him.

Ludwig almost smiled at that. Feli seemed to be safe, and if he wasn't, well, even in a crisis his friend's first concern was pasta. "Alright then." He said into the phone. "I vill be back soon."

"Bye Doitsu!" Feliciano said and the line cut off with a click. Ludwig flipped the phone over and pulled the battery out of the phone. One way to trace him was gone.

 

Despite all appearances to the contrary, Feliciano Vargas was not an idiot. He was willing to admit that he was naive, useless at fighting, and weak, but he was not an idiot. No, he was rather smart and it had allowed him to adapt. If he hadn't, well then he wouldn't have survived. He went with the flow, made the best decisions that he could with the information he had, stuck by his friends, and enjoyed life while he could because sooner or later they would be back in a war. That need to survive had given him many skills, including being very good at reading the situation, which was how he knew something was wrong.

His first clue was the fact that Ludwig had called and said he was going to be late. Ludwig Beilschmidt, Mr.on-time-is-late-and-early-is-on-time, had called to say he was late. That meant something had happened. Something serious. And Ludwig wasn't telling him what was wrong. And he probably wouldn't either. Feliciano knew it wasn't because Ludwig didn't trust him, because he was pretty sure that he did. No, Ludwig just had a bad habit of trying to do everything himself. But Feliciano was tired of his friends getting hurt because he was weak. So now all he had to do would be to figure out how to get Ludwig to tell him what was going on. His cellphone vibrated in his pocket, and Feliciano pulled it out. A text message from Ludwig. Probably about whatever had happened. His hand hovered over the button that would reveal the message, but he didn't press it. Instead he slid the phone back into his pocket. Whatever was going on, Ludwig could tell him himself. He had promised that he would be back soon, and Ludwig kept his promises. But he wouldn't want to talk about this, Feliciano realized. He would have to draw the information out of his friend. How does Fratello get Antonio to tell him things? Feliciano wondered as he wandered back into the kitchen to work on his pasta.

 

Ludwig had just finished disassembling his phone when he reached the building his boss worked in. He did not bother to stop at the security checkpoint. They knew who he was and did not try to stop him, allowing him to proceed unmolested to the heavy oak doors at the end of the hall. Knocking once, he entered the room and the Chancellor, his boss, looked up to see who it was. Upon recognition she said "Wie geht es ihnen heute, Herr Beilschmidt?" 

"Danke, mir geht's gut." Ludwig replied curtly. "aber Frau Kanzlerin, ich bereue es ihnen sagen zu müssen, aber ich habe ein Problem." 

That got her attention immediately. "Ein Problem?" She asked worried. When she had first met the man she had suspected that he was a high-ranking officer of the intelligence community. A little bit of digging had proven her right, and told her that he specialized in certain types of diplomatic crisis. She didn't mind him playing diplomat because it meant that they always knew what other countries, including the ones that Germany was not fond of, were doing after one of his periodic week long meetings. It was especially helpful because Ludwig Beilschmidt had never had a problem. The fact that he had a problem and was coming to her about it meant that this could very well endanger the entire nation. "Mit wem? Was ist es?"

Ludwig hesitated. "Das Problem liegt bei..." He paused again. He was not sure how to explain this, as his boss didn't know what he really was. He finally finished with the words, "meinem Volk." 

The Chancellor blinked. His people. That meant spies. She hated the politics of the shadow game. They were worse than real politics, because there one wrong move could literally mean the end of your life. "Brauchen sie meine Hilfe in der Angelegenheit?" 

Ludwig shook his head. "Nein, aber Danke für das Angebot. Ich bin hier um ihnen zu sagen, dass ich mit der Sache alleine fertig werden muss und während ich das mache, muss ich von der Bildfläche verschwinden."

"Für wie lange?" 

"Eine Weile. Wenn sie am 28. des nächsten Monats um 14:00 Uhr nichts von mir hören, nehmen Sie an, dass ich tot bin und gehen Sie demgemäß vor." 

"In Ordnung." The Chancellor said as she nodded numbly at this news. This must be huge. The man who never had problems was having a problem that required him to go off the grid for a unspecified period of time and where he expected there to be a possibility of him getting killed. "Sind Sie sich sicher, dass es nichts gibt was ich tun sollte?"

"Nein, danke, Frau Kanzlerin. Gute Nacht." Ludwig told her sincerely then turned and left the room.

"Gute Nacht, Herr Beilschmidt. Viel Glück." She called out after him, but if he heard he gave no response.

 

Moments later, Ludwig was back at the Bundestag. Instead of heading back inside, Ludwig headed towards where he had parked his car. Once he had reached it, Ludwig unlocked the trunk and moved the spare tire to get at the false panel underneath. Popping that open, he grabbed the bag that he had prepared in case something like this ever happened. Reaching into it, the first thing that Ludwig pulled out was another phone. Kiku had not responded before he had pulled the battery out of the old phone, and this was crucial. Inserting a new battery Ludwig dialed a number that he knew by heart. It rang a couple of times then the phone was answered with a soft "Kon'nichiwa?"

Good. Ludwig thought. Kiku had not gone off grid yet. "Hallo? Kiku? Sorry bother you. Its Ludwig. I need a favor."

 

It was 5:30 when his phone went off waking him up from a very pleasant dream. Kiku Honda glanced at the clock and blinked the sleep from his eyes. What was possibly so important that someone would call him at this time? Who was calling him at a time like this? He didn't recognize the number, Kiku realized as he picked up the phone. "Kon'nichiwa?" he inquired.

"Hallo? Kiku?" A familiar gruff voice asked. "Sorry to bother you. It's Ludwig. I need a favor."

"Ah, Good morning, Ludwig-san." Kiku said, a little surprised. He was pretty sure that this was not his friend's number. "How are you?" Kiku asked.

"I am vell, thank you for asking." Ludwig replied.

"That is good to hear. What is it that you need?" Kiku inquired.

"Vell, before you leave I need…"

Kiku cut Ludwig off, shocking himself with how rude he was being. "Just a moment please. Before I leave? Where would I be going?" he asked

"Hyu did not get the message?"

"No, I have just woken up. What happened?"

"Code 484569 is active." Ludwig said bluntly

Code 484569? Kiku thought. Wasn't that for when one of them was found out by… "Who has been compromised?"

"America"

"Alfred-san? Anyone else?"

"Nein. As far as we know it is just Alfred, but his brother may be compromised as well."

"Alfred-san's brother?"

"Ja, Markus or something like that."

"I see. What was it that you wished to ask of me?"

"I need hyu to find my brother."

"Why? What has Gilbert-san done now?"

"I vish I knew. He vas the one who called it in, so it vill be hard. Also American law enforcement agency was digging into one of his Cold War aliases minutes before I got the message. I need to know that that it is not a coincidence."

Kiku nodded affirmatively, as he got up to prepare his things. "I can do this Ludwig-san. How soon do you need this information?"

"As soon as you can get it to me"

"I see. I will try to work fast then. Will you be keeping this phone?"

"Ja"

"Then I will call you as soon as I have something."

"Danke Kiku. Auf Weitersen"

"Gubbai Ludwig-san"

 

After heading home and enjoying a surprising relaxing meal with Feliciano, Ludwig had apprised the small brunette of the current situation. What had followed, was a flurry of packing, or repacking in the case of Feliciano and a mad dash to the train station. The only good thing about this whole situation was the fact that the trains were still running on time. As such he had been able to purchase tickets for the both of them and once aboard Feliciano had fallen asleep leaning against him. Seriously though, Ludwig wondered as he tried to make himself more comfortable without disturbing the sleeping Italian, why was it that the world waited until he had little to no paperwork or dinner plans before the next crisis?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> Ich glaube nicht... dass du dich daran erinnerst, aber als du jünger warst, nahm ich dich zur Seite und warnte dich über die Menschen. Ich erzählte dir davon wie sie sich von uns unterschieden und was sie tun konnten. Und du, als das leicht zu beeindruckende junge Ding das du warst, hast zugehört und dir diese Worte zu sehr zu Herzen genommen. - I don't think you remember... but when you were younger I took you aside and warned you about people. I told you of how they were different from us and what they could do. And you, as the impressionable young thing that you were, listened and held those words a little too close to your heart.
> 
> Wie geht es ihnen heute, Herr Beilschmidt? - Ah, Mr. Beldishmitt. How are you today?
> 
> Danke, mir geht's gut. - I am well, thank you.
> 
> aber Frau Kanzlerin, ich bereue es ihnen sagen zu müssen, aber ich habe ein Problem. - I regret to inform you of this but we have a problem.
> 
> Ein Problem? - A Problem?
> 
> Mit wem? Was ist es? - With whom? What is it?
> 
> Das Problem liegt bei... meinem Volk. - Chancellor, the problem lies with...My people
> 
> Brauchen sie meine Hilfe in der Angelegenheit? - Do you need me to do something about it?
> 
> Nein, aber Danke für das Angebot. Ich bin hier um ihnen zu sagen, dass ich mit der Sache alleine fertig werden muss und während ich das mache, muss ich von der Bildfläche verschwinden. - No, but thank you for the offer. I am here to tell you that I have to deal with this personally and while I do, I have to go off grid.
> 
> Für wie lange? - How long?
> 
> Eine Weile. Wenn sie am 28. des nächsten Monats um 14:00 Uhr nichts von mir hören, nehmen Sie an, dass ich tot bin und gehen Sie demgemäß vor. - Undetermined. If you do not hear from me by 1400 on the 28th of next month, assume that I am dead and proceed as such.
> 
> In Ordnung. - Alright.
> 
> Sind Sie sich sicher, dass es nichts gibt was ich tun sollte? - Are you sure there is nothing that you need me to do?
> 
> Nein, danke, Frau Kanzlerin. Gute Nacht. - Yes. Thank you Chancellor. Good Night.
> 
> Gute Nacht, Herr Beilschmidt. Viel Glück. - Good night, Mr. Beldishmitt. And Good luck.
> 
> Kon'nichiwa? - hello
> 
> Danke Kiku. Auf Weitersen - Thanks Kiku. Good Bye.
> 
> Gubbai Ludwig-san - Good Bye Ludwig
> 
> If you like it, please leave a review. If you didn't, please tell me why not. If you have questions ask away. If you found a typo or accent mistake please point it out so that I can fix it.


	8. Curiosity killed the Cat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story can also be found on Fanfiction.net by the same name, though I go by Kneoria over there.
> 
> Pairings: None/Cannon and PruCan if you squint. If I managed to write it right, that is.
> 
> Warnings: Language, UST, possible Out of Character moments, and random references to other fandoms that the Audience may not understand. Apologies for incomprehensible accents. Set after Jenny Shepard's death, but before Eli David's. This is a Triple crossover between NCIS, NCIS: LA, and Hetalia: Axis Powers
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters belong to their respective owners. I simply play with them for my, and your amusement.
> 
> Thank you to Ktwontwo for beta reading this story. If yall have a time, go check out her stuff if only because I'm the one who keeps feeding her plot bunnies.

At the sound of footprints approaching the desks, Callen said, "That took longer than I would have expected."

"Well," Kensi replied, "We found some stuff and had to stop by the lab first."

"You found something?"

"Yeah," Deeks said as he walked up staircase. "I'm giving it to Eric"

Kensi rolled her eyes and explained, "We found the phone in one of the trash bags alright, wrapped up in a shirt that appeared to be covered in dried blood. We took that to the lab. The rest of the bag was full of papers that we thought were unimportant, just stuff from the office building next door, you know? But we checked and then we found this," She held up several bags with papers in them.

Callen took one of the bags from her. The paper inside seemed to be a higher-grade graph paper with lines and mathematical equations all over it. He studied it for another moment, "Are these blueprints?"

"We thought so," She replied, "But we don't know for sure. The corner where the name or address would usually go is missing. But that's not all of it. Check out their shopping habits," Kensi said handing another bag to Sam and Callen.

The room was silent as two looked over the papers. "That's all stuff that can be used to make a bomb," Callen remarked

Sam scanned the list again, "I don't think that they were making just one bomb. Check out the amounts and the number of receipts."

"Is there anything that could give us a date or a lead on who dumped it? More importantly, any clues on why?"

Kensi shook her head, "I have no idea why a bunch of terrorists would dump this much information. No one was acting suspicious either. The mystery blueprint is the only thing that we found that could give a location but anything that would make it easy to find in a database is missing."

"Not necessarily," Eric said from the top of the stairs and the rest of the team looked up. "Nell and I found something," He said before heading back into ops. The three agents looked at each other then headed for the stairs.

 

Moments later the automatic bamboo door opened to Ops and Callen, Sam, and Kensi walked inside. Deeks was already there, leaning over the table watching pictures cross the screen.

"What did you find?"

Eric turned around in his chair, tapping at the tablet in his hands and the screen resolved to a single photo. "I would like to take a moment to reintroduce you all to Ryan Khrushchev, our suspected terrorist, whose cell phone we now have in our possession. We know he disappeared on his way to work two days ago. Now the phone was wiped. The most recent thing on it was the text."

"So you have nothing then?"

"I said most recent thing, not only thing. The phone was wiped several hours before our suspect went missing, so whoever sent the message was not the person who wiped it. They didn't even try to recover the data either. I did and managed to get everything that was on the phone. Apparently this guy was very interested in architecture. His camera was full of pictures of blueprints of buildings of all types," Eric said as he pulled up the pictures onto the big screen. "Some are of condos, some modern apartments, some buildings are older, but there's no real indication of how they're connected," Eric explained as Sam scrolled through the pictures. "There are even a few sketches, but there aren't any details so we still don't know where they are. We are running them through a couple of databases and looking for public records right now."

"Go back a couple Sam," Kensi said as she stared at the screen.

"What's up Kenz?" he asked, as he complied with the demand.

"That's the same one that was printed out. The one that Deeks and I found in the dumpster. Out of all of them, I would say that this one in specific is the target."

"K. I'll start there" Nell said. "Continuing on, the contacts in his address book were not named so no luck there, but his most consistent messages came from four specific numbers. The messages were all street addresses with times."

Eric pulled up a map. "The most frequent of these meeting places was a bar in a restaurant located just south of Malibu. The second most common address is a residential house in LA." He pulled that up on the screen as well. "The two address' are on your phones." Eric said to a quickly emptying room.

"I know that address," Deeks said as they all walked towards the stairs. "It's not too far away. Like 15 minutes at the most." Kensi, Callen and Sam turned to look at him and Deeks shrugged. "What?" he asked when they continued to stare. "I drive by it on the way here sometimes. Anyways the better question is how are we going to get these people to talk to us?"

"Good question," Kensi said following Sam and Callen down the stairs. "If we approach them wrong, they could panic. They're probably already on high alert because one of their own is missing. Guys?" she prompted "Any ideas?"

"Tell the truth" Callen said over his shoulder

"Wait a minute," Deeks said. "The truth? You want to go up to a group of suspected terrorist and say, 'hey we've been tracking the cell phone of your buddy for a month because we think you're a group of terrorists and now that he's disappeared do you mind telling us what you're up to?' I don't think they'll be ok with that."

Sam frowned thoughtfully, then added his own two cents to the conversation. "No, wait, that could work. Tell them that the police are investigating a missing person's report that they think is now a kidnapping because we found the cell phone. Then say that you used it to track them down."

"I'm all for it." Kensi smiled, "But what are you two going to do?"

"We've got the bar," Callen said

Deeks pouted, "Why do you guys get the bar?" and Kensi just shrugged at them.

Callen turned and clapped Deeks on the shoulder as Sam said evilly, "Well you're the one who knows the place" as the four walked out the door.

 

This had been a little too easy, Gilbert decided, humming as he stared into the window across from him. They had only asked him about things that were public knowledge, as if they were confirming facts. Heck, he had started to wonder why he was here when the interrogation was interrupted. One of the agents from upstairs had poked his head in and asked to talk to Gibbs. That meant that someone had found something, and given by the amount of time it was taking to explain, it was something huge. Now the problem was how huge? Gilbert wanted to pretend that it didn't matter, but that was a lie. While the awesome him was not above lying, it just would complicate this mess.

But maybe, just maybe he could get the cops to track down Alfred for him. That might work, but how to go about it? He was almost positive that could use his awesome truth weaving skills to keep the humans out of trouble. They weren't that sm… Gilbert refused to finish that thought and make the same mistake that the rest of Europe consistently had for the past 300 years or so. American was not a synonym for incompetent. These people were obviously competent. After all they had been able to find out something that was causing them to take forever. Hmmmm. Well, he could drop hints that maybe Al went after the kidnappers. Throw in some thing about the American always going off to stand by his friends. He really did do that. Stood against one of his bosses a time or two because of their policies. It just might work, Gilbert realized. It didn't even seem like it would be too hard. But seriously, how long would this briefing take? He was getting bored again.

Gilbert's mindless humming actually settled on a recognizable tune and he had just started singing again when the door opened and Gibbs walked back in. Once again the Agent seemed surprised that Gilbert's only reaction to the interrogation room was to start singing Nena. This time Agent Gibbs seemed to ignore the abnormality of it all, and so Gilbert ignored him back until his mind registered that he had just been asked a question.

"Vat vas dat?" Gilbert inquired

"Why Canada?" Gibbs repeated.

Gilbert looked at him. Of all the questions that they could have asked? Oh right, Competent Americans. He had to stop forgetting. Now it was time to feed these people the complicated answers. Well, complicated answers for him at any rate. This set of his records were an abbreviated allusion to the truth, so he had to be careful that he didn't reveal more than he was supposed to know. He had to give them something to chew on while he tried to figure out where the line of questioning would lead. …And Matt had implied… Gilbert was smirking internally. This would be fun. He settled his expression into one of slight hostility and growled, "None of your damn business."

"Yes it is," Gibbs replied, wondering slightly about the abrupt change in attitude. The man had been mostly cooperative during the first part of the interrogation.

"Nein. It really isn't." Gilbert retorted, allowing himself to sink into a half formed personality that would generate the necessary emotional responses with the right prompting. "I haf been cooperating und I know hyu didn't get me down here so I could tell hyu how awesome I am. So vhat do hyu people really vant to know?"

"Why you moved to Canada."

Gilbert was silent as he studied the agent in front of him. Finally he muttered, "Promise you won't laugh?"

Why would Beilschmidt think that he would laugh? Gibbs wondered as he returned the man's look without saying anything. He would talk about whatever it was when he was ready. Which was apparently now as Gilbert said very quietly "Because Matt vas der."

A mild "What?" was the only thing Gibbs said to that bombshell.

"Vhy I moved to Canada. Matt vas der."

"You moved halfway around the world because you were involved romantically?" Gibbs asked just to confirm. That did not seem to fit into what Gibbs had observed of Beilschmidt's personality at all. Judging by the groan that Gilbert gave, it wasn't the first time he had received a similar response to his declaration.

"Vhy do people alvays ask dat? I can be romantic. Really!" Gilbert protested, "Und ja, I moved to be close to a Matt. Hyu gott a problem vith dat?" he asked terse

"No." Gibbs said and Gilbert relaxed. "Feel like answering any other questions?"

"Eh," Gilbert thought about it for a moment. "Sure vhy not?"

"Why did you leave Germany in the first place?"

Interesting, Gilbert thought. Right, Competent Americans again. They'd picked up on his brief residence in France or Spain, or both. "I vanted to. Und I needed to." He really needed to stop underestimating these people of Alfred's.

"Why did you need to?"

"Eh, personal reasons." He waived a hand dismissively.

"So Williams was not the reason you left Germany?"

"Ja. I left because I had to, Matt vas the reason I vent to Canada."

"So why did you have to leave Germany?"

"Hyu really vant to know that don't hyu? Vell, Lutz vas a putz and ve got into an argument that ended up involving parts of extended family und the best vay to solve it vas for me to leave. So I did."

"Who?"

Gilbert rolled his eyes. "Lutz. Ludvig Beilschmidt. Mein Bruder."

"So you had a fight with your brother?"

"Hyu could call it that."

"What did you call it?"

"A long standing continuous disagreement."

That last answer was important Gibbs thought. The suspect had dropped or suppressed his accent. "About?"

"Life, art, friendship. Hyu know."

"No I don't know. Explain."

"Vell, I am his older bruder und I didn't agree vith sum of his life choices und dat caused sum tensions. Lutz is also very OCD about cleaning und vhen I vork I leave stuff out so dat I can know vhat I am looking at. Its all part of my process, hyu see. And vell der was his Friendship " he drawled, wiggling his eyebrows in hopes that he really would not have to explain the thing between Feli and his brother. He certainly didn't understand it and there was no way to make these people understand a situation that had confused most of the world for the last 140 years. Thankfully the agent seemed content to leave that last bit alone and Gilbert finished with "Then it got blown out of proportion und next thing I knew vas dat the whole family vas involved."

Family. Well that explained more than it didn't and the specifics of argument did not seem to be too important Gibbs reasoned. Next question. "Who sent you that text?

"Wrong number." He replied too quickly. Ah, schisse.

"Then why did you react the way you did?"

"I thought it was a number of a person I'd rather not talk to or about."

"Part of the personal problems?"

Gilbert tensed. He had been alluding to what had happened with Ivan. In his current records that bit was part of his sealed juvenile records. Gilbert supposed that could be counted as a personal problem. "Ja." He muttered not willing to go on. He really didn't want to talk about it, not even the abridged version. Thankfully Gibbs seemed to realize this and moved on to the next question. "Who did you text?"

"Mien Bruder"

Gibbs was confused. Why did he text his brother? "I thought you didn't get along."

"Vat?" Gilbert stared as at him as if he was nuts. "Vhere did hyu get dat impression?"

Gibbs raised an eyebrow at his reaction. "You ended up moving to another country on another continent because of a long standing continuous disagreement with him."

"Just because ve fought doesn't mean ve don't talk. All siblings fight sometimes. Though, it's a lot better now dat he cannot nag me about everything. Ve still talk but ve try to leave vork out of it."

"So what exactly does your brother do?"

Gilbert blinked. What could he tell them about that? "Vell, he's a diplomat. Sometimes."

"Sometimes?"

"Ja. Sometimes."

"And the other times?"

"I don't exactly know. The most I got from him about the other times vas dat he is like the one TV show vith the really catchy theme song dat just got remade into a movie"

 

"Hey Ziva, Hey McGee." Tony asked as he walked into the observation room. He paused then did a double take. "Wait, McGee? What are you doing in here?"

"Watching the interrogation."

"Yeah I can see that. I mean why? Weren't you supposed to be tracing the message?"

"Did. It went to the Blundestag. He," McGee said gesturing towards the room "said the text was sent to his brother."

"Why is his brother in the Blundestag?" Tony asked as Ziva shushed him.

"He's a diplomat. Sometimes."

"Well that made everything clear. I wasn't even aware being a Diplomat was a part time job," Tony snarked. Ziva shushed him again.

"Vell I don't exactly know."

"I think his brother's a spy," McGee said as Ziva nodded in agreement.

"Yes. That cover has been used to get people out of situations before"

**"The most I got from him about the other times vas dat he is like the one TV show vith the really catchy theme song dat just got remade into a movie."**

McGee turned to Tony. "Ok, I'm lost. Mr. movie buff, what's he talking about?"

"Mission Impossible," Ziva said before he could answer. At his look she shrugged, "It was big in Israel. What are you doing in here anyways Tony?"

Tony shrugged. "Waiting for Gibbs. I found something big. I'm not stupid enough to interrupt the interrogation."

 

Gilbert was shocked by Gibbs vacant expression. "Hyu know the one where the guy jumps out of the Tower of Dubai." Still no recognition in the man expression. "Vell dats what he does. I think."

Gibbs just looked even more confused but continued on, "Ich glaube nicht dass du dich daran erinnerst, aber als du jünger warst, nahm ich dich zur Seite und warnte dich über die Menschen. Ich erzählte dir davon wie sie sich von uns unterschieden und was sie tun konnten. Und du, als das leicht zu beeindruckende junge Ding das du warst, hast zugehört und dir diese Worte zu sehr zu Herzen genommen. 

Gilbert was slightly impressed, but managed to keep it off his face. The agent's accent was not at all bad. The fact that he was being read what he sent was important. It might mean that they had someone who had recognized it as Ancient German. That same someone also probably recognized it as a quote from his old journal and they wanted to know why he sent it. Maybe. Probably. Judging from the look on Gibbs' face, most likely. Definitely not incompetent, Gilbert reminded himself once again. "Dats nice. Vhere's it from?"

"You tell me."

"I vould…if I could. Or maybe I vouldn't. But it doesn't change the fact that I cahnt, so I vont."

"Why can't you? You sent it."

"Yah und?"

"Well your transcript says that you were horrible at history so why did you send your brother a text in Ancient German?"

"Is dat vat it is?"

"You don't know?"

"Not really. I saw it somevere once."

"Where?"

"I cahnt rember vere I saw it, so I cahnt tell you vhere its from." Gilbert said, clearly getting frustrated.

"So why send it?"

"It's a good line. Und its funny."

"Funny?"

"Ja. It vas funny because I actually said something like that to Lutz vhen ve ver kids."

This was frustrating Gibbs thought. Something was seriously off there. He was certain that the man had just lied about something. But what? He'd figure it out eventually though. The team always did. "What does WC2KA2WY2CA mean?"

"Water closet, Kaffe, I don't know, and cake, which by the way is a lie." Gilbert said without hesitation. He had to give them this hint even if it was too much. He could handle whatever problems came from it. "Or it could be Water closet, Karen, why?, capital. Or it could be something else. I don't know vat it means. I said it vas a wrong number."

"Why do you think it's an acronym?" Gibbs asked. Although it would explain why Abby and McGee had not been able to decode it. The letters could have stood for anything.

"Vhy? Don't huy?" Gilbert asked annoyed. He had given his hint and now he needed to get out of here.

Gilbert was trying his patience. "Do you know an Ulric Recke?" Gibbs asked, not really expecting anything only to see Gilbert go slack jawed. 

Gilbert for his part, was on the verge of panicking. He had expected to be asked about his time as Günter not as Recke. This would take a bit of quick thinking. "Uncle Ulric?" He asked slowly, clearly confused then an idea came to him. "Oh! Is Tante Fee still around?"

Gibbs just looked at him and raised an eyebrow for what felt like the fiftieth time since he had met the man. "Tante Fee?" He asked.

"Ja. Aunt Fee. Vell, no not really. She vasnt really my aunt, just like Uncle Ulric vasnt really my uncle. He was really my great-grandmother's sister's son. Or something like that. Much to the dismay of Aunt Agatha and her dreams of proving that we were related to some Transylvanian nobility, ve lost a lot of family records in the second Vorld Var. But ve must be related because I look almost exactly like him." Gilbert nodded affirmably all the while laughing at Agent Gibbs inside his head.

Gibbs just blinked. "Aunt Fee?" he prompted.

"Oh, ja, right. Vell Uncle Ulric vas a retired spy und vhen he visited he vould tell us stories about his vork. One time he vas vorking vith an American agent vho he called Fee. He always described her as a tricky little pixie. Vell dats vhat he said anyvay. Und us kids liked those stories best und it vas obvious dat he liked her so all of us kids called her Tante Fee."

"I see. What about Johan Günter?"

"Dats Uncle Ulric's second sohn. Vhy?"

"Does albinism run in your family?"

"Ve think so. Der's been an at least one albino in every generation for as long as anyone can remember. So does vorking for the government. Uncle Ulric vas a spy, Cousin Johan vas a spy, und Lutz is a diplomat."

"Sometimes."

"Ja, sometimes. I already said dat. vern't you listening?" Gilbert remarked in an offhandedly annoyed tone. "Anyways I ahm the first metal vorker in de family since the Dark Smith of the Schwartzenwald. He vas impressive. I have a question for hyu now. Vhy does dis matter?"

Gibbs wasn't sure if there were more lies in what he had just been told, or if he was still stuck on the lie from earlier. Either way, there were no more questions that needed immediate answers. He still needed to find out why he lied though. But he couldn't question him about it, seeing as he didn't know what the lie was. Gibbs was frustrated: he needed more information. How far had the team gotten? "That's all for now."

"So cahn I go then?"

"No. We may have some more questions later." Gibbs said walking out of the interrogation room.

"Vell Schisse." Gilbert muttered, rolling his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The cake is a lie is a Portal reference
> 
> Aunt Agatha is a reference to Agatha Hetrodyne from the comics Girl Genius by Phil and Kaja Foglio. 
> 
> the Dark Smith of the Schwartzenwald is a reference to Siebold Adelbertkrieger also known as Zee from the Mercy Thompson Series by Patrica Briggs
> 
> Translation:   
> "Ich glaube nicht dass du dich daran erinnerst, aber als du jünger warst, nahm ich dich zur Seite und warnte dich über die Menschen. Ich erzählte dir davon wie sie sich von uns unterschieden und was sie tun konnten. Und du, als das leicht zu beeindruckende junge Ding das du warst, hast zugehört und dir diese Worte zu sehr zu Herzen genommen. - I don't think you remember, but when you were younger I took you aside and warned you about people. I told you of how they were different from us and what they could do. And you, as the impressionable young thing that you were, listened and held those words a little too close to your heart."
> 
> If you like it, please leave a review. If you didn't, please tell me why not. If you have questions ask away. If you found a typo or accent mistake please point it out so that I can fix it.


	9. Bachelors and Bars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story can also be found on Fanfiction.net by the same name, though I go by Kneoria over there.
> 
> Pairings: None/Cannon and PruCan if you squint. If I managed to write it right, that is.
> 
> Warnings: Language, UST, possible Out of Character moments, and random references to other fandoms that the Audience may not understand. Apologies for incomprehensible accents. Set after Jenny Shepard's death, but before Eli David's. This is a Triple crossover between NCIS, NCIS: LA, and Hetalia: Axis Powers
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters belong to their respective owners. I simply play with them for my, and your amusement.
> 
> Thank you to Ktwontwo for beta reading this story. If yall have a time, go check out her stuff if only because I'm the one who keeps feeding her plot bunnies.

The 15 minute drive had been silent. It would have been completely silent if not for the fact that the radio was turned on and that, in and of itself, was unusual. In Kensi's experience Deeks was always talking about something. He never seemed to shut up, except for now. Kensi just hoped he would get over it soon as the unnatural silence was putting her off.

She got her wish as they were walking up to the door when Deeks suddenly asked, "Kensi, how do I introduce you?"

Kensi snorted. "You mean that's what you're worried about? The reason that you've been silent all the way over here? " she asked, exasperated.

"You care!" He proclaimed dramatically and Kensi smiled.

"Sometimes. But really Deeks? You are worried about how to introduce me to suspected terrorists? Geeze, its not like I'm meeting your parents." She chuckled.

"Well, yeah." Deeks said. It was a legitimate concern. Why wouldn't he be worried about that? And mentioning his parents was a low blow. But he didn't mention it, as he didn't really want to think about it. Instead he said "If I introduce you like normal, they'll hear special agent and spook."

Kensi rolled her eyes. "Not necessarily. If you say NCIS special agent and add that he disappeared on a navy base, viola my presence is explained." She shrugged. "If it's worrying you that much, you can just call me your partner and not elaborate."

Deeks opened his mouth to make a sharp retort, but stopped. Something was off about the house. As they approached the screen door, it came to him. The inside door was ajar. It was as if someone had shut the door but it had failed to latch properly. It was a perfectly normal occurrence and totally able to happen to anyone, even terrorist suspects. They couldn't take any chances though and Deeks signaled to Kensi to draw her gun as he knocked on the door frame calling "Tomas Puavva! This is the LAPD. We have some questions for you regarding one Ryan Khrushchev." No answer. He looked at his partner and reached for the screen door. Nothing happened when he grabbed the handle and pulled it open. Kensi moved to his other side as he reached for the inner door, but before he could open it a gust of wind did so for him, revealing the hallway inside.

Tomas Puavva had a nice house, Kensi decided as she followed Deeks inside. It was towards the high end of what he was allegedly able to afford but that only showed his good taste. Well it would have had it not been such a mess, she thought disgustedly after finding what appeared to be a pink argyle thigh high sock haphazardly draped on a lamp.

"Men." She said, poking at it.

"What about 'em?" Deeks mutterd. "Are you having guy trouble again?"

"No! I don't have guy trouble!" Kensi hissed back. "Do all bachelors live in places like this? Clear."

"Clear." Deeks said, then whispered in feigned outrage, "Hey! My pad is pretty respectable."

"Clear, and we've already established that you're not a typical guy." Kensi commented softly as she moved into the next room. There was the other sock. This one folded over a hanger that was hanging off of the back of a chair.

"But I don't think that the mess is entirely his fault. Clear." Deeks said as if he hadn't heard her.

Kensi continued down the hall, "Clear. Why do you say that?"

"Well, there's a fist sized hole in this wall for one" He remarked. "Come on. We've gotta clear the rest and find Puavva. Now."

Moments later, it was obvious that the house was empty. The hole in the wall was a clear indication of what had happened. The trail of destruction spanned several rooms. The last room, which appeared to be an office of sorts, was the worst. The computer on the desk was toast. It looked like someone had drop-kicked it into the wall. The desk was on its side but otherwise intact and books were strewn about the room. A few of the bookshelves had fallen over. The wall by the door had another fist sized hole in it. This one was more impressive than the others they had seen. Not only had the punch made its way to the plaster on the other side, but fine cracks created a spider web pattern on their side of the wall giving it the appearance of glass with a bullet hole in it.

A glint of metal under one of the bookshelves caught Kensi's attention. She stared at it for a moment. "Deeks, is that a knife?"

He cautiously picked his way through the room, careful not to disturb any of the fallen books or the bookcases. There was still a chance that Puavva could be on his way back from wherever and they would need to make a cover story. "Yeah, Its clean. No blood on it." He bent down to pick it up, then froze and said, "Hey Kenz, we've got a body."

"Where?" She asked scanning the hall for movement still wondering what kind of person could do that to a wall with only a fist. When Deeks didn't answer she risked a glance to see him pulling a bookshelf off of something.

"Well Damn." She said and pulled out her phone. She dialed a number and did not bother with pleasantries when it was answered on the second ring. "We've found Puavva."

 

Gibbs was surprised when he walked into the observation room to find his whole team there. He had known about Ziva and McGee, especially as the latter had interrupted his interrogation to give him some information but "I thought I told you to watch Williams, DiNozzo!"

Tony turned to look at his boss. "I was and then he let something slip that you had to hear, but I didn't want to interrupt your interrogation boss."

"Well what was it?"

"Williams knows what a Code 484569 is"

"How did you figure that out?"

"He had a phone call from a very excitable Frenchman, who he claimed was his cousin. Speaking of, McGee I need you to check that…"

"DiNozzo!"

"Sorry boss. Anyways if I understood the conversation correctly, then Williams definitely knows what it means and is not as innocent as he appears."

Gibbs frowned. He hadn't even considered Williams as a suspect. Why should he? The man was unassuming and had revealed genuine emotions when he learned of his brother's possible death. "Let's go collect Williams then." Gibbs said turning on his heel and storming out of the room with his team close behind.

 

Two good-looking men walked into a bar and the bartender was not impressed. "We don't open until 2." He said gruffly as he wiped down the counter. The taller African American male flashed a badge while his partner was on the phone. "Federal Agents."

The bartender raised an eyebrow. From the way that they walked he had realized that they were military of some kind but he had not been expecting federal agents. "What seems to be the problem?"

"Just need to ask a few questions about some of your customers. That's all."

The bartender nodded. "I see. Well, do you have a warrant? Company policy says I'm not allowed to answer with out one."

Sam and Callen looked at each other. That was strange and was worth looking into. What kind of company wouldn't let an employ speak to federal agents? The bartender continued to polish the counter, watching their reaction. He let his disgust for the policy show on his face and then the expression turned thoughtful. "However if I were to turn my back to make sure that we have enough mugs, and you were to go through the first door to the left on the second floor then I wouldn't be held responsible if you happen to find the manager and talked to him."

The bartender pointedly turned around. Sam and Callen stared, observing him for a moment. He too appeared to be ex-military of a sort and was definitely not happy with the policy that he had told them about. The fact that the company had a policy like that in place screamed that the company had something to hide. They would definitely have to keep their eyes out for anything else unusual. Nodding to each other, Sam and Callen headed for the stairs.

A well mannered "Come in" answered Callen's knock on the door, and the two agents entered the room, not sure what to expect. The sight that greeted them was one of surprising normalcy. A middle-aged man sat behind a wooden desk covered in files. "Just a moment, please." He said placing a file in a cabinet behind him. "What can I do for you?"

"We have some questions regarding some of your customers. Tomas Puavva, Ryan Khrushchev, Evan Castillo, Eric Kjær, Martin Lee, and Scott Nguyen. Do you know them?"

"I think I know who you are talking about. They come in once or twice a month in the afternoon. They were here just last week in fact. Wednesday I think. Why? Are they in trouble?"

"Yes."

"I see. Who are you people anyways?"

"Federal Agents."

"Ah. Well then all I can tell you is that they met here periodically. Always quite, never caused much trouble. How much trouble did you say they were in?"

"We didn't."

"I see. Well I don't want any trouble, but if you want to know more," Disgust showed on the man's face as he continued, "Company policy states that I have to ask for a warrant."

Sam and Callen looked at the man. That was the second time in a few minutes that they had heard that line today. Something was definitely going on here, but they would have to find out later. Sam opened his mouth to say something but the manager kept talking. "But I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to excuse me gentlemen." He said as he stood, shuffling around some papers. "I need to use the restroom. I think I drank one to many cups of coffee in my attempt to stay awake through doing the books." He finished his reorganization and purposefully placed his mug on one such file. "I'll be back in a moment." He said and slipped by Sam to go out the door.

"Did he just?"

"I think he did."

"Why?"

Sam shrugged. "Maybe he doesn't like company policy."

"Or there is something else going on here."

"That too."

"We'll have to figure it out later. He said Wednesday right?"

"Yeah, and he placed his mug on that file. What do you want to bet it's from last Wednesday?"

"Not taking that bet," Callen said as he moved the mug and picked up the file. "Mmhm, Wednesday. There are several receipts in here." He thumbed through them. "Looks like everyone paid with credit cards."

"Signature?"

"Not legible."

"Get pictures and send the lot to Eric. We don't know how much time he's going to give us."

"Already on it." Callen said.

"Ask Eric to look into this place as well. Something's not right here." Sam said glanced at the door.

"Is it your gut telling you that?" Callen asked sarcastically as he closed the folder and replaced the coffee cup.

"No, it's the fact that a military man and a civilian are overly accommodating after telling us that they can't talk because of company policy," Sam deadpanned.

"I know. It's bothering me too."

"Speaking of civilians," Sam muttered as the office door opened revealing the manager.

"Sorry about that." He said as he walked back into his office. "Was there anything else I could help you with?"

Sam and Callen shared a wry look, before Callen stuck out his hand. "No, that's all right. We'll see about a warrant. Thank you for your time."

The manager smiled and shook Callen's hand. "Sorry I couldn't be more help. Have a nice day, gents."

Sam nodded and they headed out the door. A nod to the bartender who had moved on to drying glasses and then they were outside again just as Callen's phone vibrated. Callen answered after glancing at the number, "Eric, I need everything you can give me on the bar." Callen said into his phone.

"Working on it," Eric said. "Anyways I called to let you know that I got names and addresses for the rest of the cell phone numbers. It includes the house Kensi and Deeks went to. I sent the list to your phone."

"Thanks Eric," Callen said, ending the call.

"Where to first?"

"Castillo's. Its closest."

"How close?"

"Not very. According to this he lives in North Hollywood."

"Great." Sam said as he pulled out of the parking lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you like it, please leave a review. If you didn't, please tell me why not. If you have questions ask away. If you found a typo or accent mistake please point it out so that I can fix it.


	10. The Great Vanishing Act

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story can also be found on Fanfiction.net by the same name, though I go by Kneoria over there.
> 
> Pairings: None/Cannon and PruCan if you squint. If I managed to write it right, that is.
> 
> Warnings: Language, UST, possible Out of Character moments, and random references to other fandoms that the Audience may not understand. Apologies for incomprehensible accents. Set after Jenny Shepard's death, but before Eli David's. This is a Triple crossover between NCIS, NCIS: LA, and Hetalia: Axis Powers
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters belong to their respective owners. I simply play with them for my, and your amusement.
> 
> Thank you to Ktwontwo for beta reading this story. If yall have a time, go check out her stuff if only because I'm the one who keeps feeding her plot bunnies.

Kensi sighed as she shoved the phone back into her pocket and re entered the room. Deeks had moved from his inspection of the body, to working on the papers that surrounded it. "Anything useful?" She asked looking down at the mess of the papers on the floor.

"The guy was a nut," Deeks said from his position on the floor.

"Why do you say that?"

"Well look at some of the books that he's got." Deeks said gesturing towards some of them. "A supposed copy of Solomon's Grimoire, Grimms Fairy Tales, Smithing for Dummies, So You Want To Be a Wizard, and a large variety of gardening books. He also seems to have quite a collection of urban fantasy novels, most of which have plots involving hunting and killing mythical creatures. I bet if we look at his DVD collection, Netflix account or DVR he'll have every episode of Supernatural and Grimm."

"What does that have to do with anything? And how do you know the plots of urban fantasy novels?"

Deeks shrugged. "My neighbor reads them."

Kensi rolled her eyes. "Your new, cute, female neighbor?" She said as she picked her way through the papers towards the body. She wanted a closer look at that knife.

"Yeah. Your point is?"

Kensi snorted. "Nothing. Anyways the Local LEO's will be here in 20-30 minutes."

"Whats taking them so long?"

"Traffic." Kensi remarked halfheartedly . She didn't recognize the kind of knife. It was too small to be a good offensive weapon, and had a strange curve to it making it an odd choice for a kitchen knife. "Hey Deeks?"

"hm?"

"You got anything on this knife? I don't recognize it."

"Oh, yeah, that's another reason I think the guy's a nut." Deeks said as he shuffled through another pile of papers. "Yeah, here it is. According to this booklet, that knife is a 100% silver atheme"

Kensi blinked. "A what?"

"You know, a witch's knife used for potion making or rituals?" Kensi didn't bother to answer, she just stared at him as Deeks continued. "Yeah, I know. Anyway we now have proof with out a doubt that this guy is one of the terrorists. I just found a receipt that's practically a carbon copy of the ones from the dumpster."

"Right. " Kensi nodded and stood back up. "A terrorist that believes in the supernatural. That's a new one."

"Terrorist are still pretty new for me." Deeks commented as moved towards the desk. "Hey Kensi?"

"Yeah, Deeks?"

"What are the odds that the fight would trash a computer, but leave the desk relatively unharmed?"

The two looked at each other, then moved as one for the desk. "There must be something in here." Kensi muttered as pulled it up. She pulled on a drawer. It didn't budge. She looked down at it. No lock. "I don't think it made it through completely unscathed." Kensi said as she pulled a little harder. "This drawer is stuck"

"Put your back into it" Deeks offered, as he reached for a drawer of his own.

"You put your back into it." Kensi retorted, pulling on it again. Both were surprised when both drawers barely budged but a section on the surface of the desk lifted up.

"What the hell…" Kensi muttered as she let go of the handle.

"Is that a secret compartment?" Deeks asked, with a surprising amount of enthusiasm.

"I think so."

"This is so cool." Deeks said, as he flipped the lid up revealing a thick Manila envelope. He grabbed it and let the lid shut. "What do you think it is?"

"I have no idea Deeks." Kensi said in exasperation. "Hopefully something that will tell us where the terrorists are targeting." She grabbed the folder from him, and ignoring the protests of "Hey!" reached inside and pulled out a thick stack of photos. There was a moment of silence as she spread them out on the desk, until Deeks said "I don't know what I was expecting, but I was not expecting that."

"Me either." Kensi said. "Any ideas on who this guy is?"

"A target." Deeks suggested, as he picked up one of the photos and flipped it over. "Does the term Historian mean anything to you?"

"No, why?"

Deeks turned the photo around, so Kensi could read the messy scrawl on the back for herself. She sighed. "I've got to call Callen."

 

"Where the hell is Williams, DiNozzo?" Gibbs growled, looking at the clearly empty conference room. Tony gaped. "I don't know boss. He was here 10 minutes ago when I asked Agent Drew to watch him."

"Drew?" Gibbs said and glanced around again. "Neither of them are in here, DiNozzo."

"I can see that boss." Tony responded warily.

"So where the hell are they?" Gibbs all but roared.

"Starting to search now, Boss." Tony said as he walked out of the room.

 

Traffic in the valley was always a pain, Sam mused as the car in front of him inched forward. Especially in the summer when one was trying to get to Northern Hollywood. "Tourists." Sam said with loathing.

"You know you love them." Callen offered up from the passenger's seat.

"Can't stand them." Sam said, as the Bluetooth went off. He changed what he had been about to say for a "Who is it?"

Callen looked at the screen. "Kensi again." He pushed a button. "Hey Kensi."

"Hey Callen. Where are you guys?"

"Stuck in traffic on the Freeway. Eric got addresses for our suspects and we're headed out to the first. Why?"

"Deeks and I found a folder containing surveillance photos of a military officer, in a hidden compartment of Puavva's desk. Going by the uniform in one of the pics, he's a marine. On the back of one of the photos, someone had scrawled 'Potential Historian. Follow him, find the monster.' That mean anything to you guys?" She paused for a moment, but before wither of them could answer, Kensi spoke up again. "And Deeks said I'm supposed to tell you Puavva is a total nut. His words not mine."

"Why?" Sam asked.

"He tried to attack whoever came after him with an atheme."

"A what?"

"A ritual knife made of silver."

"Bad choice for a weapon." Sam said. "Metal is too soft for repeated attacks. Did he get the guy?"

"No. He got the wall a bunch of times though." Kensi paused again, and in the background, the two could hear others talking. "Looks like the Local LEO's got here. Just wanted to let you know about the folder because chances are if one of them had it then the others do too."

"Yeah, we'll keep an eye out for it." Sam said.

"Hey Kenz, before you go, want to do us a favor?"

"Sure, what's up?"

"Looking at the traffic, there's no way we're going to be able to get to the address in Newport. Want to head out there when you're done?"

"Sure." Kensi said before hanging up the phone.

 

Tony sighed as he approached his boss' desk. Gibbs was going to kill him. "She's not here boss. I just checked the entire building twice and called her cell. She didn't pick up."

Gibbs looked up from his paperwork. "Anyone have an idea where she went?"

"Nope" Tony said with a wince

"I do." Ziva said as she slipped her cell phone into her pocket. "She is on her way to eat lunch with her boyfriend and father. They just arrived in D.C. this morning. "

Tony whipped his head around to stare at his coworker. "How do you know that?"

"I called her."

"So did I!"

"Which phone did you call?"

"She has more than one?"

"Yes."

"Why? Also why don't I have the number for it?"

"She used to investigate things for her father in college and ended up in a few situations that could have been avoided if she had another phone so she started carrying one. It only has emergency contacts on it, which is why you probably don't have it."

"Why do you then?"

"We have lunch on Tuesdays"

"Ziva, What does this have to do with our case?" Gibbs asked, interrupting the squabbling.

"I sent her Matthew Williams picture and asked if she knew what had happened to him. Nancy did not recognize him at all and actually wanted to know why I was asking her about a marine whose disappearance we were investigating."

Gibbs frowned. "McGee! Anything on the tapes?"

"Not really boss, I'm watching them right now. Agent Drew went into the room at 2:35. The camera in the room shows her looking for someone and not finding them then walking out 5 minutes later. Mr. Williams followed her out. He entered the elevator and walked out the front door, only stopping to say goodbye to Randall who's currently on desk duty. He does not remember talking to Mr. Williams either."

"Does Williams really have a cousin named Francis?" Tony asked. Everyone turned to look at him. Tony shrugged. "After he got the phone call from his cousin Francis, he started acting strange. It could be worth a shot."

"I'll try." McGee said. "Yeah, Williams is related to a Francis Bonnefoy. Cell records show that he did call but his phone is currently…." He trailed off and stared at the screen.

"Currently?" Tony prompted but was ignored as McGee started typing furiously.

"McGee!" Gibbs barked but the agent barely glanced at his boss.

"Sorry boss. We're being hacked"

"What?"

"Someone is in our systems."

"Who?"

"I'm working on it boss."

"Work faster McGee"

"Yes boss. Thing is I know I've seen this coding signature before"

"So who is it?"

"I'm not sure." McGee took a breath and went back to typing. "Oh Shit"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I figured out who the hacker is. We're being hacked by Radical Ed the Fourth."

"Who is that?"

"No one knows" Tony said, "The profile says that he's a seven foot tall ex basketball pro Hindu guru drag queen alien."

Everyone turned to stare at him. "What?" Tony asked

"No jokes Tony, I'm working. Anyways, no one knows anything about Radical Ed. He's the enigma of the hacking world. He'll hack into anything and just look at whatever the person was trying to hide. If he thinks the security was horrible, he'll leave tips on how to improve it. The thing is, he doesn't do anything with the information. The only reason he's on anyone's watch list at all is because when I said anything, that included governments."

"What is he doing in our systems McGee?"

"Looking at our most recent case files"

"Get him out."

"Working on it boss" McGee said, his typing speeding up even more. It was silent for a few moments then the lights flickered. "No, no, no, no, no!" McGee muttered as the lights flickered again and the team looked on in horror as all the electronics in the building went dark.

"What was that, McGee?" Gibbs asked

"He took down the generators to get me off his back. "

 

I need a distraction. Gilbert decided as he leaned the chair back ant propped his feet up on the table. It's the only way I'm going to get out of here. But what could he do? Nothing, absolutely nothing from in here. They were watching him. He knew that. So what to do? Gilbert stared at the ceiling when he noticed the lights flickering. Maybe he wouldn't need a distraction after all. Gilbert smirked as the building went dark completely. He just needed an incredible amount of luck.

It took a few moments for Gilbert to realize that he was lost. He had turned the opposite way from being led down into interrogation and was following the walls when his hand brushed against a desk with something on top of it. He reached out and touched it. It felt like a badge but he would have to see in able to be sure. Either way, he was keeping it for now. It could be useful later. He continued feeling his way around the building. There was a elevator here, then a door in corner. Ah, shit. Dead end. Or maybe not. He pushed the door open and stuck his head in as the lights flickered back on. Lucky. He had found the stairs.

 

Abby sighed in relief as the lights turned back on. Finally she could get back to work on the car. She was convinced that this was indeed the car that had been used to transport Private Samson. There was some blood, but nothing like the crime scene. She would know, having seen the photos. Footsteps sounded behind her. How did he always know? Abby wondered as she turned around and her "Hey Gibbs!" fell flat. She didn't know who this guy was but he definitely was not Gibbs. Not unless he had somehow turned into a lean albino who wore leather. "Who are you? Do you work here?"

The guy chuckled "I'm definitely not Agent Gibbs, but yes I do work here. Name's Giles Johnson."

Abby nodded. "I see. Abby Scuito. Why don't I know you?"

"I'm new."

"Cool. How do you like it so far?"

"Its nice. Definitely better than past jobs." He paused and took stock of the room, "Um, where am I?"

"You don't know? You're in the evidence garage. Its kinda restricted. How did you get down here anyways?"

"Stairs. I think I'm lost."

"Well where were you trying to go?"

"Out to meet a friend for lunch. I got turned around in the blackout. That happen often?"

"Not really. Quickest way to the street is through that door. Take the second left."

Giles nodded. "Thanks for the help Ms Scuito."

"Its Abby"

"Abby." With that Giles nodded and started across the garage. Abby watched him go, then suddenly called out. "I dig the Nosferatu look!"

Gilbert stopped at the door and turned to look at the goth in the lab coat that he had just encountered. With a lazy smirk he called back "Max Schreck's got nothing on me." He offered a lazy wave then entered the hall. What was it that she had said, the second Left?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Agent Drew is a reference to Nancy Drew from the Nancy Drew Book series
> 
> Radical Ed the Fourth is a reference to Radical Edward, the genius child hacker from Cowboy Bebop
> 
> So, the name of that knife. Im pretty sure its incorrect, but I cant remember what it really is called. If you know, feel free to let me know.
> 
> If you like it, please leave a review. If you didn't, please tell me why not. If you have questions ask away. If you found a typo or accent mistake please point it out so that I can fix it.


	11. Scuttlevine and Grapebut

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story can also be found on Fanfiction.net by the same name, though I go by Kneoria over there.
> 
> Pairings: None/Cannon and PruCan if you squint. If I managed to write it right, that is.
> 
> Warnings: Language, UST, possible Out of Character moments, and random references to other fandoms that the Audience may not understand. Apologies for incomprehensible accents. Set after Jenny Shepard's death, but before Eli David's. This is a Triple crossover between NCIS, NCIS: LA, and Hetalia: Axis Powers
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters belong to their respective owners. I simply play with them for my, and your amusement.
> 
> Thank you to Ktwontwo for beta reading this story. If yall have a time, go check out her stuff if only because I'm the one who keeps feeding her plot bunnies.

"I don't believe you." Callen said as they hopped out of the car

"Why not?" Sam asked and Callen shot him a look. 

"You want me to believe that there is a bar where your drink costs a buck and allows you to smash your glass in a fire place?"

"You know," Sam said thoughtfully "I think you're just jealous"

"Jealous?"

"That I found it and you didn't."

"Not jealous. Just can't believe there's a place like that in Jersey"

"Its not. Not anymore. Moved down to the Keys a few years back" Sam commented as he and Callen stopped at the edge of a quickly forming crowd outside the house they were looking for. "Wonder what happened here?"

"You didn't hear?" a woman's voice piped up from next to them. "It's been on the news for a couple of hours"

"No, I haven't. I don't listen to the news while I drive." Sam said as they turned to look at the woman who had spoken.

"S'all cool. Anyways it started with a guy," The woman paused as if thinking about something then continued, "As it normally does. Anywho this dude was special because he lived on this street. All the tourists drive by here, and as such the neighbors are rather nosy, but for a good cause. 'Cause stuff gets broken into a lot down here. Who knew? So they, the neighbors that is, heard the sounds of fighting and called the cops 'cause the guy lives alone you know? Then there was a twang and next thing they know their neighbor is stumbling outta his house with a couple of arrows in 'im. One of 'em called the police; then the media noticed and that's when things started getting hectic."

Sam and Callen shared a look, then turned back towards the brunette. She noticed the look, "What? 'S what happened."

Sam shook his head "We believe you, just…"

"How did you find all this out?" Callen said, interrupting his partner

She waved a hand flippantly. "I live in the area. When I've got the time, I come down here and people watch. It's interesting. Other than the fact that a guy died, which is really sad, this probably makes the second strangest thing I've seen on this street."

"What's the first?" Sam asked.

"Bunch of dudes singin "Hey there Cthulhu" and freaking all the mundanes by chasin 'em around while dressed in green robes."

Both men blinked. There was no real response to that. "You said he was dead?" Callen asked looking at the slowly growing crowd.

"Mmhm. Paramedics pronounced him dead just before I escaped the throng of lookie-loos and found you two wandering in."

"You were here when it happened, right?"

"Yeah"

"Did you see the shooter?"

"Shooter? What shooter?"

"The one who shot the arrows"

"Nope. Not a thing. Course it coulda been a figment of the dead guys's imagination."

"What do you mean? "

"I mean, that there may be no other shooter. The dead guy could have shot himself.

"What makes you say that?"

"Well scuttlevine says"

"Sorry what?"

"Ya' know, Grapebutt?" They shook their heads

"No?"

"No."

"Hmmmm, Oh. Grapevine! Or Scuttlebutt. Whichever. Whatever. Doesn't matter really. Point is, they thought he was insane."

"How come?"

"He was rather paranoid and a member of some strange new age religion. The neighbors thought he was escaping persecution of some sort. Whatever it was, he's not from around here. He had a few gatherings occasionally but he kept it quiet so no one really cared."

"I see. Who came to these gatherings?"

"No clue. People from his religion maybe? They were quiet folk. Didn't much care for attention." She paused and peered up at them, "Heeeeeey… You two are cops right?"

"Sort of. We needed to talk to the man who lived here, but it appears that we won't get the chance. Thanks for filling us in though Ms?"

"Oh sorry, didn't I give you my name? I'm Sam. Samantha Franklin-Walsh" She moved to stick out her hand, but the watch on her wrist gave a soft beep. She looked at it with a grimace. "Aw man dudes, sorry t' run out on ya like this but I gotta jet. Hope you get your info. Hang loose 'n all that." Samantha said, and jogged off with a small wave. The two agents watched her go in utter confusion.

"I don't think she was just a local or a lookie loo" Sam commented as she disappeared around a corner

"You picked up on that too? There is no way she should have known all that." Callen said.

"Another thing, did you notice that she wasn't really a redhead?"

"Yeah. Her roots looked blondish" Callen said as he turned back to the house. "Come on. Lets go make nice with the local leos and see if they've found a file. "

 

"Ah" Deeks exclaimed as he rolled down the windows of the Cadillac.

"What are you doing?" Kensi asked

"Smell that fresh seaside air Kens!" Deeks proclaimed happily

"What are you, a dog?" Kensi muttered as she turned to look out the window. "And what fresh air? All I smell is decaying fish" A car rumbled past, belching smoke and cutting her off. "And car exhaust." She coughed.

Deeks hummed thoughtfully. "Wonder where he's going in such a hurry."

Kensi shrugged. "Who knows? You sure you know where you're going?"

"Yes. I told you. Its right across the street from a surf shop I frequent. Speaking of which, I need more sex wax."

"And?"

"And we're already down here. Mind if we make a 5 minute detour after we've checked out the apartment?"

Kensi shrugged. "I don't see why not. That the apartment?"

Deeks looked up and pulled into a parking lot. "Yep. Hey, did Sam and Callen actually tell us anything about the guy?"

"No, but Eric sent us a file"

 

Kensi and Deeks stared at the apartment. The door was open, and it was a mess. The damage was practically identical to Puava's house. The feeling of Déjà vu was not overwhelming though since here there were no holes in the walls. A pile of papers were scattered about on top of an end table that had managed to avoid the destruction. Kensi picked one up and flipped it over as Deeks walked further into the apartment. " Deeks, this is one of the photos from that file. Martin Lee was definitely involved with the group."

"No kidding. Look at this stuff." Deeks said pointing towards the kitchen, where a large box of iodized salt stood on the table next to a garlic clove necklace and a glass bottle marked with a cross.

"What is in that bottle?"

"No idea" Deeks said uncorking it. "No color or smell" He dipped a finger in and put it in his mouth. "Just water. Nothing special… Unless it's supposed to be holy."

Kensi just shrugged and surveyed the destruction that had once resembled a living room. "I don't think we'll find anything else useful in here. Did you see any security cameras on the way up?"

"No" Deeks replied, "But the surf shop might. It's got a couple of street facing cams as a result of a burglary a couple years back."

"Lets go get that footage then."

 

"G!"

"Yeah?"

"You think this is a folder like Kensi was talking about?" Sam asked grabbing a file off of the top of filing cabinet.

"I don't know, but I hope so. I don't want to go through that cabinet. What's in it?"

"Looks like a bunch of photos, and some miscellaneous papers."

"Well then, lets see"

"…"

"Isn't that…?"

"Yeah. You call Eric and I'll call Kensi. We need to alert DC."

 

Small bells jingled as Deeks pushed open the door to the surf shop. "Be with you in a moment!" a voice called out from the back of the store. Deeks smiled and walked past the racks of clothes and kitschy doodads at the front towards the actual surfboards in the back.

"You do know that's not what we're here for right?" Kensi asked as she trailed in behind him.

Deeks shot her a mournful look. "Yeah, I know. That's where he keeps the wax though."

"Go get your wax" Kensi said making her way over to the proprietor who had just come out from the back room.

It was difficult to not look at the boards and not want one Deeks realized as he wandered over towards them. He spared a glance at his partner who was talking to Nick. Yeah, he had a few minutes. Deeks looked up at the various boards on the wall. It wasn't like he needed a new one, Deeks thought, trying to convince himself. After all, his current board worked fine. And he didn't have the money anyways.

A soft chuckle interrupted his thoughts. "I know that look."

"And what look is that?" Deeks asked, grabbing a package of wax.

"The look of a guy who wants what he can't have."

"Yeah. Sounds about right." Deeks turned around to look at who he'd been talking to. A young man with shaggy, sandy blond hair, a leather bombers jacket, and blue eyes behind wire-rimed frames stared back at him. "AJ?" Deeks questioned.

"Marty?" a smile broke out on AJ's face making the man seem much younger than he was. "DUDE! I haven't seen you in forever! Where've you been hiding man?"

"Eh, I've been around. Got a new job up the coast so I haven't had as much time to make the drive all the way down here. But what about you?"

"What about me?"

"Well man, how're you doing? Last I heard, you'd gone off to Afghanistan. When did you get back?"

AJ looked up at the ceiling in thought "We got back, about a month ago I think. They haven't told us when we're shipping out again so I've been spending my time looking for a job and surfing."

"How's that working out?"

"Dude, the surfing is amazing. I've caught some truly wicked waves. The job hunt is meh. Not having much luck, but in this economy who is?"

Deeks didn't get a chance to answer as a new voice cut into the conversation "Did you find your wax?" Kensi asked, coming up from behind him.

"Yeah." Deeks held up the bar in his hand. "You find out what you wanted about those surf lessons?"

Kensi shot him look. "Mmhm."

"Cool. Just let me pay and we can go." Deeks turned to AJ "Sorry man, gotta run. Good luck, alright?"

"Yeah man. Catch you later."

Kensi and Deeks walked off towards the counter. "So what's up?"

"Callen called. They found another folder and its huge. They need to brief us and D.C."

 

"Guys what is up with this lock down?" Abby demanded as she strode into the bullpen. She had evidence waiting outside. Crucial DNA Evidence that could identify a pedophile. Evidence that was decomposing as they spoke, because of some stupid lock down. "No really. What's up with the lock down? I have evidence that can't get in because of it." She paused and noticed everyone staring at her. "What? Do I look like a tourist again?" The agents in the bullpen shook their heads. "You want to know part of the cause of this lock down?" Agent Stills said to Gibbs while her partner, Agent Carter just stared

"Please"

He didn't answer but pointed strait at Abby who asked "Me?"

"No not you." He flapped a hand at her "The bird." He tapped a finger to his forehead

Abby rolled her eyes. "What bird? I don't see a bird. Are you calling me crazy?"

Ziva shook her head. "You are not crazy Abby. There really is a bird on your head."

"A chick or a fledgling by the looks of it" Was McGee's comment as he tried not to smile. Tony on the other hand walked slowly closer peering at the bird nesting in her hair. He didn't say anything for a moment then nodded.

"What is it DiNozzo?"

"Its Beilschmidt's chick boss."

"His what?"

"He had a bird on his head when he was getting coffee, but it wasn't there when he came in. It must have gotten lost."

"So, a bird caused a lockdown?"

"Yeah!" Carter said. "Somehow it got into the observation room and went nuts when the blackout occured. Though if this is Beilschmidt's bird I'm not surprised. I think he's touched in the head."

"Wait, who's bird?" Abby asked, very confused

"Beilschmidt. Current suspect. Metalworking artist from Germany, living in Canada. Young, 23- 25 maybe. Albino, likes leather? Currently on the run. He escaped from interrogation during the blackout."

"He's a suspect?" 

"The only one at the moment." Tony said studying his goth friend "Why? You see him?"

"Yeah." she said miserably whirling to face Gibbs. In a sudden explosion of emotion the forensic scientist exclaimed "They shoulda been pointing at me Gibbs!" The team traded looks. "I told him how to leave!"

That got everyone's attention. "What do you mean? When was this?"

"10-15 minutes ago, I saw him. A man fitting that description came wandering through the garage."

"And you let him go?"

"I didnt know he was a suspect. I thought, Giles Johnson, thats the name he gave me, was a baby agent. He looked lost and had a badge, so I told him how to leave."

"McGee check the footage."

"Working on it, boss"

"This is just great" Tony remarked slumping back into his seat. "Our one suspect has vanished and what do we have to show for it? A baby bird. What are we going to do with a baby bird?"

"Well, it can stay with me." Abby offered "until you guys find him again." She reached up, had closing gently around the ball of feathers. Bringing her hands in front of her, the pair stared at each other for a moment. "Aren't you cute? I'll take care of you." she crooned then looked up again "It's the least I can do while you track him down."

"Thanks Abbs."

"Gibbs?"

"What McGee?"

"It appears to be no use boss. Beilschmidt's gone. I have footage of him entering the garage and exiting the building, but then he just disappears. None of the nearby cameras picked him up. And they need us up in MTAC"

"Why?"

"They found something in LA."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bar Sam is speaking of is Callahan's Bar from Callahans Crosstime Saloon by Spider Robinson
> 
>  
> 
> If you like it, please leave a review. If you didn't, please tell me why not. If you have questions ask away. If you found a typo or accent mistake please point it out so that I can fix it.


	12. Beds and Brunnettes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story can also be found on Fanfiction.net by the same name, though I go by Kneoria over there.
> 
> Pairings:PruCan and GerIta if you squint. If I managed to write it right, that is.
> 
> Warnings: Language, UST, possible Out of Character moments, and random references to other fandoms that the Audience may not understand. Apologies for incomprehensible accents. Set after Jenny Shepard's death, but before Eli David's. This is a Triple crossover between NCIS, NCIS: LA, and Hetalia: Axis Powers
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters belong to their respective owners. I simply play with them for my, and your amusement.
> 
> Thank you to Ktwontwo for beta reading this story. If yall have a time, go check out her stuff if only because I'm the one who keeps feeding her plot bunnies.

Contrary to popular belief, Ludwig Beilschmidt did not wake easy. Was he an early riser? Yes. He consistently got up for his day at 6 in order to be in the office by 9 but it was not easy. It was why he had so many routines. They were structured and rather easy to follow. He could do them in his sleep and often did. Typically, Ludwig did not wake up fully until the middle of his mourning run at approximately 7:30, which begged the question… What was he doing up now? His internal clock was telling him that he didn't have to be up to go into the office for another four hours, so what was he doing awake?

Ludwig glared at the ceiling as if it held the answers that he was looking for and suddenly realized that it was not his ceiling. Never mind being awake, where was he? And why was he not alone in bed? He glanced around the room, not moving to avoid disturbing his random bed partner. There was a small hallway with an open door that appeared to lead to a bathroom, according to the closet mirror. In the room itself there was a desk and counter combination with a television hanging over it. On the other side of his bed stood a plush armchair and footstool by the closed curtains of a window. Two suitcases had been placed against the other wall next to the empty twin bed.

Suddenly the events of the past day hit him. The strange text from Gilbert. Activation of Code 484569. Calling Kiku. Warning the others. Effectively resigning. Telling Feliciano, which had been an experience in and of itself. Packing and the train ride. Checking into a hotel. Late dinner in which the brunette had bemoaned the lack of pasta. Speaking of the brunette, Ludwig glanced back over at the empty bed, sighed, then lifted the covers and looked down. There Feliciano was, curled up into the German's side like a large cat. Ludwig frowned as he resettled the covers over the both of them. At the next hotel, he was going to suck it up and rent a room with one bed, implications aside. It would be cheaper, and more convenient seeing as Feliciano never slept in his own bed anyways.

That was two questions answered. Where was he? In a hotel. Who was in his bed? Feliciano, no surprise there. But why was he awake? And what was that annoying buzz? Ludwig turned slightly and soon found the source of his irritation. His cell phone was ringing.

"Hallo?"

"Hello? Ludwig-san?"

"Ah, Kiku. How are you?" Ludwig struggled to detangle himself from blankets and brunettes in order to sit up.

"Tired, but well. I found out some of the information that you were looking for but not as much as I had hoped. The agency had a rather competent computer programmer who almost succeeded in tracing my location."

"Are you safe?"

"Yes, I am safe. However to prevent them from finding out my location, I had to trip their power which resulted in me being booted from the servers."

"I see. Well, what did you find?"

"I'm not sure. Your brother and Williams-san were in the building for a decent amount of time talking to the NCIS agents about Alfred-kun's disappearance. They attempted to leave when your brother received a text message, and soon after he was taken to an interrogation room. Williams-san was escorted to the conference room that he had been in earlier. He stayed for a while, then when the agents changed calmly walked out of the room and left the building."

"And my brother?"

"Was still in interrogation. I believe that he used the confusion caused by the blackout I created to escape. I sent what they knew about Aflred-kun's disappearance to your phone."

"I see. Thank you for looking into that for me."

It was not a problem. I am glad I could help but sorry I could not find out more. A soft yawn was audible through the phone and there was a muffled voice in the background. "Now, I would like to head to bed. Was there anything else that you needed?"

"No. again, thank you. I will see you in a few months ja?"

"Hai. Goodbye."

The phone disconnected with a click and Ludwig laid it back down upon the side table. What was going on? What was he going to do? What could he do? That was an easy question. He currently could do nothing. He could try to figure out what was going on from his limited information but that wouldn't help.

"Doitsu?" a sleep heavy voice asked from his side. "Wats wrong?"

"Nothing Feli. Go back to sleep."

"Somethings wrong. Ludwig, you promised you'd tell me..."

"Im just worried"

"About?"

"The situation. My brother. My brother most of all."

"Well it's no use worrying. Your fratello will be fine. He's been taking care of himself for a long time."

Ludwig blinked down at the sleepy Italian. How could he make more sense when he was half asleep than when he was awake? Eventually he decided that he would chalk it up as one of the strange things that the man did. Instead he offered "I know. He's been around a lot longer than me. But I still worry. Especially after… well, you know. He came back different."

Feliciano shuddered. "That was a bad time. But he's getting better now with the help of his friend. Gilbert will be alright. So stop worrying and " he yawned "go back to sleep." And with that, the brunette curled back into the blankets and his side and fell asleep. Ludwig stared in disbelief then with the slightly cheerful thought that he did not have work tomorrow settled back down to do exactly that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you like it, please leave a review. If you didn't, please tell me why not. If you have questions ask away. If you found a typo or accent mistake please point it out so that I can fix it.


	13. Departures and Arrivals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story can also be found on Fanfiction.net by the same name, though I go by Kneoria over there.
> 
> Pairings:PruCan and GerIta if you squint. If I managed to write it right, that is.
> 
> Warnings: Language, UST, possible Out of Character moments, and random references to other fandoms that the Audience may not understand. Apologies for incomprehensible accents. Set after Jenny Shepard's death, but before Eli David's. This is a Triple crossover between NCIS, NCIS: LA, and Hetalia: Axis Powers
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters belong to their respective owners. I simply play with them for my, and your amusement.
> 
> So, its been a few days! Thanks you to those who have caught my mistakes and let me know about them. Im happy you all enjoy the story this much! Thank you to Ktwontwo for beta reading this story. If yall have a time, go check out her stuff if only because I'm the one who keeps feeding her plot bunnies.

"Hey Eric"

"What's up McGee?"

"Do you still hold your record?"

"For?"

"Holding off Radical Ed the Fourth."

"Yeah. 11 minutes 42 seconds. Why?"

"Darn. For a moment I thought I had beaten it."

"Wha'd'ja get?"

"I tied."

"Dude. But seriously, first JD gets close, then you tie? My skills must be getting rusty."

"JD? Isn't that the kid from Denver?"

"Yeah, Radical Ed took a walkthrough of their servers late last year and he held him off for, like, 11 minutes and 34 seconds."

"Nice."

"So, what did he say about your security?"

"I haven't really had a chance to look yet."

"Look at what McGee?"

The two NCIS agents jumped at Gibbs' question. Neither had noticed him enter the room. "The security notes left by the hacker, boss."

"Look at them later. Everyone here?"

McGee glanced behind him to see the rest of the team enter the room. "Yeah, we're all here boss."

"Good. What are we waiting for?"

"Us. There was traffic. Gibbs." Callen said as the four walked into the room.

"What did you find?"

"Eric, pull up the photos from the files. The first photo is from a file that Kensi and Deeks found in the house of one of our suspected terrorists, a man named Tomas Puavva. The second photo is from a different file that Sam and I found in North Hollywood at another suspected terrorists house, a man named Evan Castillo. The third is from an apartment in Newport belonging to a Martin Lee. Notice anything?"

"It's the same man" Deeks commented helpfully.

"Its more than the same man. That's Private Samson." Tony remarked

Kensi and Deeks shared a blank look. "Who?" they asked

"Right. You two don't know about DC's investigation, as you guys were out looking for the phone." Callen said.

"Private Kevin Samson went missing 4 days ago. We're currently searching for him and his best friend, a Private Alfred F. Jones. McGee. Put up Jones' picture."

McGee nodded and a picture of a familiar looking man appeared on the screen.

Kensi frowned at the screen. "Deeks, isn't that?"

He squinted. "Yeah, it is."

"What? Do you know Private Jones as well?" Ziva asked curiously.

"We saw him."

"Who?"

"Private Jones. I know him as AJ. He's a surfing buddy and occasionally catch waves together down in Newport."

"Do you have a phone number?"

"No. A surfing buddy is more of a 'surf together when you're both there' kinda thing"

"Oh. So when did you last run into him?"

"Today. Getting security footage from a surf shop."

"Have you looked at the footage yet?"

"No. We just got back."

"Put it up."

"Sure. Here Eric."

"Give me a moment… There. You guys should be able to see it."

"Any sound?" McGee asked

"Not really. Just traffic. Too far away to be terribly useful."

"Ah."

There was silence as the video played.

"Eric." Ziva asked, "Could you back up the video a few seconds?"

"Yeah, sure. Why?"

"That man." She points "There. In the jacket. Is that Jones?"

Deeks peered at the screen. "I think so. Same outfit at the very least."

"Eric, can you run facials?" Callen said moving in for a closer look as well.

"No problem." There was a pause, then a soft ding. "Yeah, that's Jones. Any ideas on what he was doing in California?"

"Surfing." Deeks shrugged. "Look, all I knew about the guy was that he's a marine, he likes to surf, and has a brother who lives up north. Judging from the video he's helping an old woman with her groceries."

"Sam? Is that something he would do?"

"Jones? Oh yeah. He had a thing about being the Hero."

"Hey who's that?"

"Hmm?"

"The man getting into the black Chevy. He looks terrified."

"Running facial recognition." There was a soft ping. "That's Martin Lee."

"Well at least he's not dead." Callen said

"What?" Gibbs voice was sharp

"The other suspects? So far they've all turned up dead."

"We're coming out there." Gibbs said after a moment. 

"What?"

Tony nodded. "No, no it makes sense. You guys still have another two houses to look at right? And now Lee to find? Jones is our suspect, we'll come out and get him. Then we can figure out what the hell your terrorists want him for."

"We know why they want him." Kensi said "They think he's the Historian."

"Who's the Historian?"

"We don't know. We couldn't find anything."

"Anything else?"

"No, nothing on this end."

"Alright." Gibbs paused. "If Jones is out there then its highly likely that Beilschmidt and Williams will turn up there as well"

"Wait, that's Jones' brother and his boyfriend right? I thought they were in DC?"

"We don't know where they are. Williams simply walked out of the building and Beilschmidt waltzed out of Interrogation during a power outage caused by the cyber attack. They had been looking for Jones, add them to the list of people to watch out for."

"Ok. See you when you get here Gibbs"

 

"There is no time for stalling, people" Hetti said walking into the room. "It sounds like you all have a lot on your plates. I estimate that Agent Gibbs and Agent DiNozzo will be here later tonight."

Callen nodded. "Eric, Nell, I need you two to stay on the electronics trail monitoring for sights of Samson, Jones and Lee."

"What about Gilbert Beilschmidt and Mark Williams?" Eric asked, already turning back to his computer.

"Who?" Deeks said

"The brother?" Eric offered

"Isn't his name Markus?" Kensi wondered

"No, I dont think that's correct" Sam interjected. "I thought his name was Matthew…"

"It doesn't matter." Callen said putting a stop to the conversation. Addressing Eric "Look for them as well but Jones, Samson, and Lee are our priorities. Try to trace that car Lee was in. It'll be nice to give Gibbs and DiNozzo a lead or two when they get here."

"Alright."

"Got it."

 

Alfred leaned against the side of a pale blue ford fusion hybrid and watched people trickle out of the airport. He had been in the area almost all day, but it wasn't until around 25 minutes ago that he realized his brother's plane had landed. He scanned the airport exit again and smiled when he spotted a familiar head of silver-grey hair and very red eyes. Thank god for Gilbert's exotic coloring effectively neutralizing his brother's curse of invisibility. They too appeared to be scanning the crowd, looking for him probably, and Alfred waved. Their eyes simply passed over him and Alfred cursed. They didn't recognize him, in the charcoal grey suit, fedora, slicked back hair and no glasses. Well, at least if his brother couldn't recognize him, then they wouldn't be able to either. "Gil! MATT!" Alfred called and waved his hat. This time they did notice him and while they headed over with looks of confusion, Matthew pulling Gilbert along by the hand.

Alfred beamed when the pair reached him. "Matty! Gilbert! How was the flight?"

"How was the flight?" Matthew asked incredulous "How was the flight? I'll tell you how the flight was. It was awful. And do you know why?"

"Why?"

"Because my brother sent my best friend a text telling us he had been discovered by terrorists and we couldn't " Matthew jabbed his finger at his brother "find" another jab "HIM!"

"Chill man! All's good. Seriously Matt." Alfred said opening his arms for a hug. "Look at me. I'm fine"

"We were still worried you dip shit." Matthew said as he hugged his brother.

"Jerk face"

"Hoser."

Alfred paused as if realizing something. "Waaaaiiiiit"

"What?"

"You said we."

"What?"

"Gilbert, were you worried?"

Gilbert turned back towards the brothers, one eyebrow inching up on his face. "Vat?"

"Matt said we. So therefore, I thought you mighta been worried."

"Vho me? If I vas vorried, it vould be about vat your stupidity caused for Matthew und mine bruder. "

"It's OK Gilbert. I know you were worried"

"Noh, I vasnt"

"Were too"

"Vas not"

"Was so"

"Vas not"

"Was so"

"Vas not"

"Guys" Matthew interrupted "Its nice to see you two getting along, really, but I would like to know what is going on now please"

Alfred sighed and stepped out of the hug. He ran his hand over his slicked backed hair and settled the fedora back on his head. "Yeah, come on. Hop in the car, and I'll explain. Y'all want lunch?"

"I can eat"

"Cool."

 

"Next flight to LA is in an hour and a half boss. You'll have to run to make it, but before you go, you might want to see this." McGee said pulling up a screen on the MTAC wall.

"What am I looking at McGee?"

"The notes."

"What notes?" Ziva asked

"The notes on how to improve the system's security from Radical Ed"

"The hacker?"

"Yeah, its his trademark. Anyway, what this basically says is that I did a good job of holding him off, but he is disappointed that I had not apparently noticed the other hack."

"What other hack?"

"I didn't know either so I went looking. When Samson went missing, we were hacked by someone else. They were good. No one noticed them."

"What did they want?"

"To look at Jones's case file. "

Gibbs paused then pointed at Tony "Pack your bags. We're going to California. McGee, Ziva you two stay here. Help Abby with that code and find out about that hacker."

"Yes boss."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The kid, JD from Denver is a reference to John Daniel, JD, Dunne from the Magnificent 7 specifically the ATF AU created by MOG
> 
> I don't surf. Unfortunately. The point is, I have absolutely no clue if that is what a surfing buddy is. If I happen to be wrong, let me know yeah? 
> 
> If you like it, please leave a review. If you didn't, please tell me why not. If you have questions ask away. If you found a typo or accent mistake please point it out so that I can fix it.


	14. Sun, Surf and Stench

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story can also be found on Fanfiction.net by the same name, though I go by Kneoria over there.
> 
> Pairings:PruCan and GerIta if you squint. If I managed to write it right, that is.
> 
> Warnings: Language, UST, possible Out of Character moments, and random references to other fandoms that the Audience may not understand. Apologies for incomprehensible accents. Set after Jenny Shepard's death, but before Eli David's. This is a Triple crossover between NCIS, NCIS: LA, and Hetalia: Axis Powers
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters belong to their respective owners. I simply play with them for my, and your amusement.
> 
> Thank you to Ktwontwo for beta reading this story. If yall have a time, go check out her stuff if only because I'm the one who keeps feeding her plot bunnies.

"Agent Gibbs, Agent DiNozzo." Callen said, getting up from his desk and walking towards the entrance hall, Sam following close behind.

Gibbs nodded at the men who greeted them as they walked into the beautiful building NCIS LA division called home. "Agent Callen, Agent Hanna. You moved from the last time I was here."

"Yeah, we did. How was the flight?"

Gibbs shrugged. "Ask DiNozzo, I slept like a babe."

"I still don't know how he does that." Tony piped up cheerfully. "Honestly I've been on better flights."

"Military flights not agree with you?"

"Not really, no, but I'm better at handling it than others I know."

"Sounds like there's a story there." Callen said with a smile.

"There is." Gibbs cut in "But now is not the time."

"Right." Callen said and motioned for Kensi and Deeks to step forward. "Gibbs, DiNozzo, I'm sure you remember Agent Kensi Blye"

They nodded as Kensi spoke. "Nice to see you again Agent Gibbs. It's nice to meet you Agent DiNozzo"

"…and this is Detective Marty Deeks"

"Detective?" Tony asked as Gibbs raised an eyebrow "Not agent?"

"Me? No man, not me." Deeks protested

"Then, what do you do?"

"I help, and I liaise"

Tony blinked. "Is that even a verb?

"If it isn't it should be." Deeks said with a smile.

"With whom do you liaise?"

"LAPD. You an ex-cop?"

"Baltimore, once upon a time."

"Cool. Wait, DiNozzo from Baltimore? Were you the point guy from the Dream Den case?"

Tony nodded, but a whistle cut off any further response. The group looked up as Eric stuck his head around the corner and called out "Are Agents Gibbs and DiNozzo here? McGee and Agent David are on. They've got something."

The sliding doors slid closed with a hiss behind five agents and one detective as they trickled into Ops. McGee and Ziva were on the screen. McGee was patting down his pockets, apparently checking for something. Ziva stood behind him and gave him a soft nudge. He looked up and caught sight of Tony and Gibbs. "Boss. Tony. Glad I caught you. How's LA?"

"Gorgeous. Sun, sand, and skin everywhere." Tony said beaming.

Ziva pulled a face. "And when have you had any time to see any of that Tony?"

"Not much but I'd say that the little bit I've seen has been nice. Jealous?"

"No, I am not Tony."

"Sure you aren't." Tony drawled. Before the bickering could progress, Gibbs intervened. "Glad you caught us, McGee? You two have something?

"Yeah, we have something alright. We actually have two somethings."

"Two?"

Ziva spoke this time. "Yes. Good and bad. The first is that we lost Wilson and Beilschmidt in the Huston airport."

Gibbs stared at his agents confused. "Who?"

"Miles Wilkins?" McGee said

He simply raised an eyebrow while Ziva and McGee exchanged a look.

"You know, Jones' brother?"

"Did you mean Matthew Williams?" Gibbs questioned

"Yeah him. We traced them to a plane from Regan to Huston that departed a few hours before you did. I got into their servers and we spotted Walters and Beilschmidt as they were disembarking, but not long after that we lost them.

"Did you keep searching?"

"Yeah, but no luck. The closest I got was time stamped a couple hours later and we think we spotted Beilschmidt again, buying a ticket to LA but the name used and outfit were different."

"Did you try facial recognition?" Tony asked

"Yeah, but I ran into a bit of a problem as the cameras were poor quality. The footage was too grainy and zoomed out to be any use to me or Abby. We both tried. "

"Then why do you suspect this new man?" Callen asked

"The build was right." Ziva offered. "Also, gut."

"And statistically how many combat boot wearing albinos are there in America?" McGee asked

"How many Albinos are there in North America?" Eric echoed.

"Actually, there are quite a few. Albinism has a 1 in 17,000 chance, and the population of the North American Continent is around 528.7 million, so that's about 31,100 people" Nell offered.

"Interesting" Sam said, "but can we get back on topic please?"

"Sure." McGee nodded. "Like I said, the ticket our suspect was buying was to LA and would have arrived at approximately 5pm yesterday. Eric, I sent you a picture of him. If it really was Beilschmidt, Waters won't be far behind."

"Got it." Eric said, as the computer in front of him chimed softly with the You have mail sound.

Gibbs nodded. "What's the second piece of news?

"I managed to trace the original hack down to a computer that's often in the Smithsonian café. The one in the Castle. If it follows the same pattern, it'll be there up until closing. We need to leave within the next five minutes if we want to have a chance to catch the perpetrator. Even if we don't get them, we should be able to catch the manager, snag their security feed and get a face."

Gibbs nodded. "Well? What are you waiting for? Go."

"We will." Ziva said and the screen went dark.

There was silence in the room for a moment as everyone tried to process the information that they had been given. It was broken by Tony commenting "On the bright side, we know where Beilschmidt and Wilkes are going."

"Oh they're definitely already here" Eric said, pulling up a photo. "I set up a program yesterday to help us search for your suspects and we got a ping when this guy flew into LAX at 5:10 yesterday. I took a look at the photo, but seeing as it didn't look like the picture of Beilschmidt we had, I ignored it. Looking at it again, he matches the new one McGee sent. Your suspect was traveling with a strawberry blond man who wore glasses and they eventually met up with someone."

"You have footage of this?" Gibbs demanded

"Yeah. Traffic cam in the pickup and drop off zone caught most of it"

"Put it up." Callen said.

Eric complied and soon enough, the NCIS agents could track the progress of the two men as they made their way through the airport. Eric paused the video for a moment and zoomed in on the pair. "That was the best shot I could get of their faces. Is it them?"

Gibbs and Tony studied the men for a few seconds. "Yeah. That's them." Tony said. "Well, what now boss? Do we try to track Beilschmidt and Williams or do we try to find Jones?"

Gibbs ignored him for the moment. "You said they met with someone?"

"Yes. Right about now actually." The agents watched as the two men exited the building and the footage switched to another camera. Beilschmidt and Williams stopped, looked around for someone or something then suddenly took off towards a young man in a suit who happened to be leaning against a pale blue ford fusion hybrid who was excitedly waving a hat around before jamming it back on his head.

"Who's that?" Kensi asked

"I don't know. The only time he turned around the hat blocked his face so I've got nothing. "

"Could it be Jones?" Tony wondered aloud

"It could be. He has the right body type" Callen said

"So do 68% of the people in that airport. Also, that outfit is not something Jones's would wear." Sam said

They all looked at the screen again. The man in question was wearing a charcoal grey suit, and fedora. "Actually, that suit reminds me of that FBI consultant from New York. Remember, from the diamond case?" Callen said

Deeks nodded. "Yeah. But then if it's not Jones, who would it be?"

"I don't know. Do they have any friends in the area?" Sam asked

"There was nothing in their files that mention it." Gibbs said studying the screen.

"Kensi, can you get anything from what they are saying?" Callen asked.

"Play it again?"

"Sure." Eric said. There was silence in the room as the security feed played again.

" No," Kensi shook her head. "There's nothing terribly useful there. Just a bunch of joking insults. Sorry guys."

"Its ok. It was a long shot. Did you try running the license plate of the Hybrid?" Tony asked

"I'm running it now."

"So while that's happening, we still have two houses to check out." Callen said "Kensi, Deeks, you take Jinxs' place."

"Sure. That's the one in Temecula, right? Where are you two going? Pasadena?"

"Yeah. Kjaer has a house there. Any idea on what you'll be doing Gibbs?"

Gibbs nodded. "We'll start looking for Jones. We know he's here and Beilschmidt and Williams will probably meet up with him eventually, or he will know where to find him. You last saw him in a surf store in Huntington?"

"Yeah." Deeks said. "Don't call him Alfred when you're looking down there though. No one will recognize the name. I didn't."

"What do you know him as?" Tony wondered

"To the surfers and beach community, he's just A.J."

"Right." Gibbs nodded. "Hopefully the owner can give us a lead on other places that Jones likes to hang out."

"Sounds good. Eric, Nell, keep working on tracing Jones and figuring out where he's been. If you can, add Beilschmidt and Wilmington, dang it Williams, to that search. "

"Got it"

 

It was approximately 3 hours later, and the normally friendly conversation in the communications room between Eric and Nell had died out after the first hour in so both techs could focus on their respective tasks . "Hey Nell?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think that Jones is responsible for the deaths of the terrorist group?"

"Not, particularly… Why?"

Eric tapped a finger on the desk. "Well, so far I've managed to trace the guy to an area near the location of a decent number of the crimes."

"How?"

"Luck mainly. The guy changed cars like every two hours or so, but I've got footage of him in Santa Monica, Huntington, and Hollywood."

"Which are all reasonable destinations for people visiting California. What's the problem?"

"I don't know. There's no real reason to suspect he's the guy and from what I've seen, he doesn't seem like a killer…"

"You do remember that he's military and Sam trained him right?"

"Yeah and that's part of what's throwing me off because its that knowledge that makes me keep thinking its him."

"So what are you going to do about it?"

"Nothing at the moment other than keep looking. Its just suspicious to me. I mean Jones even has a legitimate reason to be in each place."

"Such as?"

"Well, he's a surfer."

"So?"

"So that gives a reason to be at Huntington and Santa Monica"

"But not the others?"

"One would think. You remember that strange civilian that Sam and Callen ran into in Hollywood?"

"Yeah." Nell said wondering what that had to do with anything, "Samantha Franklin-Walsh or something right?"

"Right. I looked her up. She and her twin brother are both the legal wards of one Alfred F. Jones, and she lives in Hollywood."

Nell hummed thoughtfully. "That's interesting. I'm still not sure what the problem is but we'll figure it out. Have you managed to trace him to Temecula or Pasadena yet?"

Eric shook his head and gestured to the screen "No the program's still running. Nothing to do but wait until it finds something."

Nell shrugged in a what-can-you-do manner. Unlike their friends in the field, the job she and Eric did was more of a 50% boredom, 40% research and 10% of pure panic. "Well, we should call Callen and Sam anyways. They'll want to hear about the connection between Jones and Walsh at the very least to pass on to Gibbs. And I found out a few things about that bar."

"Anything good?"

"Oh, it's definitely interesting but I'm not quite sure how relevant it is."

"Well, lets find out" Eric said reaching towards the phone.

 

Pasadena was one of those stereotypical Southern California cities and as such relied a lot upon appearances. It had a lovely view of the San Gabriel Mountains a mix of Spanish Mission style buildings and craftsman inspired houses, surrounded by lovely parks, as well as some tourist attractions including the Rose Bowl Stadium, the Norton Simon art Museum and the Huntington Library. In the residential areas the trees, even though many of them dated from the early 1900's, waged ineffectual war with the sun providing minimal shade on the street. Sam sighed as he opened the car door. "That was a complete waste of time"

His partner looked surprised. "You think so?"

"You don't?" He retorted, starting the car.

"Not really."

"Why? There was nothing helpful in that house"

"We found the folder." Callen said.

"And it was the exact same folder that's been in every house so far."

"We found more alleged supernatural deterrents."

"I still don't understand the significance of those." Sam countered.

"Yeah, me either but they've got to tie in somehow. Most importantly we now know that Eric Kjaer is also missing."

"Think he's alive?"

"I don't know. His neighbor said he left the house in a hurry a few days ago and asked her to take care of his cat. We'll have to get Eric on it." Callen said reaching for his phone, quickly dialing a number "Eric"

"Dude," a surprised voice said on the line, "Are you like psychic or something? I was just about to call you two."

"Found something?"

"Yeah, but I'm not sure Sam is going to like it."

 

A soft breeze drifted through the house, carrying with it the scent of citrus and the wine grapes that made Temecula Valley so famous. It would have been rather pleasant, had the breeze not also been carrying the rather distinct smell of a rotting corpse. It took a decent amount of willpower for Kensi to ignore the unpleasant stench. The fact that house was mostly quiet except for murmured comments here and there as she studied the scene in front of her, helped. Deeks had wandered off, somewhere else in the house "looking for more clues" as he had put it. She was getting up to track him down when a pop song started blaring rather loudly through a tinny speaker followed by some swearing. Kensi smirked. She was glad that she wasn't the only one startled by the noise.

"Hey Eric." Deeks said, his voice coming closer. "Are you psychic or something? I was just about to call…" Kensi tuned out the rest of the conversation, letting it fade into the background as she turned back to the crime scene. There was something off here and she couldn't quite place it. The first weird thing was that they had finally found Ryan Khrucheve. They suspected that he had been hiding out with his friend Dan Jinxs. From the crime scene and a couple of curious neighbors, they had learned that there had been loud arguments coming from the house for the past couple of days or so, and it appeared that the two had gotten into an argument and killed each other.

That was when she realized what was weird. The men may have argued, but going by the gun placement someone staged this to make it look like they had. Triumphant, Kensi stood and whirled to point this out to her partner when she realized he was still on the phone and the conversation was not going well.

"La Jolla?" Deeks was saying, "Are you sure?" There was a muffled response from the phone and Deeks sighed. "No, no, call them back and send them there. The message clearly indicates that Nyger was headed to the San Diego area and the only thing here is a staged crime scene. Not worth anyone's time to come all the way out then drive down there. It's going to take them a while as it is, cause the 405 is always a pain." There was a pause and Kensi glared at her partner. He had noticed the crime scene was staged and not told her? "Yeah, thanks Eric. Talk to you later." He hung up and slid the phone into his pocket finally noticing Kensi's expression. "What?" Deeks asked warily.

"You knew?"

"Uh, maybe? What do I know?"

"Don't play dumb. You knew it was staged and you didn't tell me?"

"You hadn't noticed?"

Kensi balked. "What? No, of course I noticed."

Deeks smiled. "Liar"

The glare returned. "Not the point. The point was you didn't tell me."

"I thought I would try out not stating the obvious. You guys are always harping on me about that."

"Obvious?" Kensi said furiously.

Deeks shot her a concerned look. "I am a detective, you know. It's a staged crime scene. It's pretty obvious."

"Right." She sighed trying to let go of her anger. "So what's this about La Jolla?"

"That's where we're headed next. I found a note in the guy's desk from someone named Richard Nyger saying that he was heading down to an address down there. We're going to see if we can find him. Sam and Callen are already on their way."

Kensi nodded. "Fine. But I'm driving." She proclaimed snatching the keys from her partner's hand.

 

Californians drove like they were crazy, Tony decided as he hung on to the grab bar above the car door as yet another person cut in front of them. They had been headed towards the beach in La Jolla, a lead courtesy of the surf shop owner in Huntington, when Eric had called redirecting them towards a storage unit rented out by one of the terrorists, not far from their intended destination. Eric had also mentioned that Callen, Sam and the rest of the agents would be headed their way, but it would take them a bit. He had mentioned something about traffic and the Great California Construction project before Tony had managed to thank him and hang up.

"HOY!" came a shout as Gibbs pulled into the parking lot for the storage unit and a short balding man walked out of the main building eying the cars with apparent suspicion. He rolled down the window and waited for the man to speak. After a moment of studying the cars, clearly taking note of the lights supposedly hidden in the front of the car the man spoke again. "You guys the cops?"

Gibbs nodded and the man's suspicious expression turned into a beaming grin. "You guys got here faster than I expected. Lemme open the gate for ya." Tony looked over at his boss about to ask if they were really going to do this but Gibbs shook his head willing Tony to play along. The man, oblivious, blathered on as the red gate squeaked open. "M' name's Pat, short for Patrick and I run this place. Its good you all got here so quick because I can't have that thing there stinking up my business."

"What thing?" Gibbs asked as he pulled through the gate.

Pat looked incredulous. "You mean they didn't tell you?"

"Nope." That was Tony piping up cheerfully. "They didn't tell us a thing, just to get out here and start investigating. So, what are we investigating?"

"Some psycho decided to off himself in one of my storage units. Unit 184G"

The two DC agents shared a look. That was the unit they were interested in. "Show us." Gibbs demanded

 

The gate to the storage facility was open when Sam and Callen finally arrived in La Jolla. "Strange." Callen remarked as they drove through towards a secondary parking lot that held a familiar car.

"Gibbs and DiNozzo are already here."

"I'm not surprised. Eric mentioned that they had already been on their way down here when he called."

"Ah." Sam acknowledged, "What about Kensi and Deeks?

"They had to wait for the LEO's to arrive. Probably won't see them for a little while longer."

"Great. What smells?" Sam asked as he got out of the car.

Callen shrugged. "Smells like bad tacos. Somehow I doubt that's what it is though." and walked through the open door with a sign announcing the way to the inner storage units. The stench was much stronger inside, made nigh unbearable by the ever present Southern California heat. The odor was all to familiar to both of them; the smell of violent death. It was obvious that the smell was coming from the only open unit in the hall. The two agents moved quietly down the hall when someone in the unit spoke. The baritone easily recognizable as Agent Gibbs.

Sam and Callen stopped their stealthy approach and walked up to the open unit. It was reasonably well organized with minimal clutter. Shelves lined the walls, filled with a variety of boxes, jars, photos and knick-knacks. The least organized part of the room would have been the back corner that Gibbs appeared to be investigating had it not been for the face down body in the pool of dried blood that Tony was currently poking at.

"Anything interesting?" Callen asked as they stepped inside.

"How about a suicide that isn't?" Tony offered as he gently moved the wrist of the dead man to get a better view of the wounds.

"Murder?" Sam asked

"Oh yeah. The guy was hit on the head couple of times, probably knocked unconscious, then his wrists were slit with this" he held up a plastic bag "knife and left to bleed out."

"Who is he?"

"Don't know. We think he's one of the terrorists."

"Any particular reason?"

"Rule 39." Sam shot Tony a confused look, and Callen chuckled.

"Rule 39?" Sam repeated.

"No such thing as coincidence?" Tony said.

"You don't believe in coincidences?"

"Gibbs' rules."

"So what's coincidental about this?" Sam asked.

"Uh, the fact that we were coming here to investigate a specific storage unit, said specified storage unit had a body in it, the proprietor was expecting the cops, the terrorists keep ending up dead… Should I go on? And speaking of cops, how long does it take SDPD to show? The manager thinks that's who we are and we should probably stop the actual police department from blowing our cover. Who normally takes care of that?"

"Deeks does. He's the liaison. It's what he does."

"Cool. Where is he?" Tony asked as he turned back to the body.

"Halfway here from Temecula by now," Sam replied.

"I'll call Eric and he'll get the LEO's to hold off until we are clear." Callen said, stepping back outside the unit.

"Thanks Callen." Tony frowned at the body. "Gibbs, I don't think I'll be able to figure out who he is without moving the body"

"Do it then." Gibbs said picking up a picture of a group of men in front of a sailboat from a nearby shelf.

"Sorry Ducky." Tony muttered to himself as he rolled the man over to get to his pockets.

"Hold up a sec." Sam said as he got a good look at the dead man's face. "G. Come look at this."

Callen wandered over, phone in hand, and took a long look at the dead man. Though the face was a bit disfigured, he was immediately recognizable to the two. "No need to go ID searching, Tony. You were right. There are no such things as coincidence. He's one of the terrorists. The name is Eric Kajer. Sam and I were at his house before coming here. This changes things. I'll get Eric to send our people out for this."

Tony and Sam nodded and Gibbs spoke up again. "Where did you say Agent Blye and Detective Deeks were?"

"On their way, why?"

"Call them. Whoever killed Kajer, who lived in Temecula right, has a boat that they dock at slip 69d of the San Diego Marina. If the boat is not still moored then he most likely has a 2 day or more lead on us."

"How'd you figure that out?" Tony asked, standing with a wince as his muscles protested the crouch he had been in for far to long.

Gibbs didn't say anything more, just held out the picture he had been studying and walked out to the car.

Sam looked down at the picture of a group of people, most of whom were now dead, in front of a boat. The slip number was clearly visible on a locker.

 

Gilbert Beilschmidt sighed as he leaned against the side of the San Diego Marina Office. California was beautiful, but not in the middle of summer. Then it was just torture to his fair complexion, the amount of sunscreen he used be damned. Adjusting his sunglasses to prevent as much of the light that he could from entering his already sensitive eyes he tuned back into the conversation of his friends to frown slightly. Alfred was still trying to persuade Matt to go and deal with his problems for him.

"But please Mattie?"

"No Alfred!"

"But Whyyy?"

"Because its your mess you hoser." Matthew replied his annoyance growing clearer by the moment. Gilbert's frown eased into a smile at that. Matthew was finally standing up for himself. He was a good influence after all. Unable to help himself, he grabbed his friend and leaned on him, hooking his head over Matthew's shoulder. Matthew, entirely used to this kind of treatment ignored it, saying "Your mess means you fix it."

Alfred on the other hand, smirked as his attention was drawn towards the Albino. "Oh I know!" he cried exuberantly. "Gil, you can do it!"

"Vhat?" Gilbert exclaimed "Oh fuck noh. I ahm doing no such ting. Nefer. I ahm out. Dis is your problem." Silence met his statement, but Gilbert's sharp ears caught a muffled intake of breath from somewhere around the corner of the building and he was immediately aware of several people attempting to discreetly surround them. He tightened his grip on Matthew, who shot him a questioning look that Gilbert ignored. He'd explain later, if Matthew didn't realize what was going on first. He probably would. The kid was smart like that. Alfred probably wouldn't. The idiot was still talking, but he met Gilbert's gaze and there was a spark of cold intelligence there, one that reminded Gilbert of the boy he had trained in the late 1700's. "Mattie," Alfred smiled, and the intelligence appeared to vanish as a teasing expression took its place, "Ask Gil to do it!"

"What?"

"Vhat?"

Alfred rolled his eyes. "He won't do it if I ask, but probably will if you do Matt."

The Matthew glanced at Gilbert then spoke, "And I'd never ask him to do that Al. Seriously."

Gilbert's expression turned grim. "I died remember? Hardly anyone wants anything to do with me anymore. And…"

A slightly familiar voice cut him off. "You're pretty spry for a dead man." Tony DiNozzo commented as he walked around the corner with his gun trained on the group.

Gilbert just rolled his eyes and finished his sentence. "Hi tink hyu haf other options now."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The mentioned FBI consultant is Neal Caffrey from White Collar
> 
> If you like it, please leave a review. If you didn't, please tell me why not. If you have questions ask away. If you found a typo or accent mistake please point it out so that I can fix it


	15. All's well that ends well

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story can also be found on Fanfiction.net by the same name, though I go by Kneoria over there.
> 
> Pairings:PruCan and GerIta if you squint. If I managed to write it right, that is.
> 
> Warnings: Language, UST, possible Out of Character moments, and random references to other fandoms that the Audience may not understand. Apologies for incomprehensible accents. Set after Jenny Shepard's death, but before Eli David's. This is a Triple crossover between NCIS, NCIS: LA, and Hetalia: Axis Powers
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters belong to their respective owners. I simply play with them for my, and your amusement.
> 
> Thank you to Ktwontwo for beta reading this story. If yall have a time, go check out her stuff if only because I'm the one who keeps feeding her plot bunnies.

"I still don't by it." Sam said walking into the main hall the majestic old Spanish styled building that housed the NCIS LA headquarters.

"Buy what?" Callen asked, trailing slightly behind

"Beilschmidt's story about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Something was off there."

Callen shrugged. "I didn't buy Jones' or Williams' story."

Sam stopped and stared at his partner. "Then why did you let him talk us into going into Mexican waters on that boat?"

"We needed to get Sampson."

"So, you didn't trust Jones' story but you trusted his information?"

"It was one of the few things he didn't lie about."

"How could you tell he was lying? You only met him this once."

"Sam, I know you like him but the kid is a horrible liar. I could tell after only meeting him the once. What I want to know more is where he got the information, why it was accurate, and why the entire operation turned into such a mess"

"That wasn't a mess"

"That op was a complete and total mess."

"Not for something that had any kind of contact with Jones. Scuttlebutt always claimed that if Jones was involved with a mission, the chance that it will go FUBAR escalates exponentially in direct proportion to how involved he was. Going by that, we got off light. Sure we lost our last two terrorists, but none of us were injured so I'd say we did good."

"Really?"

"Sadly yes."

"I just hope Kensi and Deeks managed to get something out of them."

"Well," Sam said as the pair rounded the corner towards their desks where he could see the other members of their team working on something, "You can ask them yourselves."

Callen glared at his partner before walking through the opening of decorative fence. Kensi noticed their approach and looked up with a smile. "Hey guys."

"What are you two doing here?" Callen asked through gritted teeth

"Uh… We work here?" Deeks said unhelpfully.

"Don't be a smartass Deeks" Sam said, sitting down "He wants to know why you two are not with Jones, Beilschmidt and Wade."

Deeks cocked an eyebrow and mouthed "Wade?" at his partner who shrugged then addressed the question. "You're not going to like it"

"Why not?"

"Because we had to let them go. We couldn't hold them."

"What?" Sam asked incredulously

"It was all a little bit strange and happened really fast."

"Well start from the beginning then."

Kensi nodded and took a breath "I had just escorted Weston and Jones into the boat shed, while Deeks accompanied Beilschmidt to the bathroom…"

 

_Kensi closed the door and walked down the hall towards the main room, only to nearly run into Jones and Williams who had stopped suddenly. Squeezing around them, she saw the reason that they had halted._

_"Miss Blye." Henrietta Lang, the director of the LA NCIS base was standing in the middle of the main room studiously studying the two men in front of her both of whom looked mildly uncomfortable with the assessment._

_"Hetty" Kensi acknowledged, wondering just what exactly was going on._

_"You gentlemen are Mr. Jones and Mr. Williams correct?"_

_"That's us!" Alfred beamed, while his brother just nodded politely._

_"Yes, I thought so. Please have a seat." She studied them again as they made to comply, then lifted two thick sealed envelopes off of the table. Kensi's eyes widened in surprise as she recognized the presidential seal upon one of them, as Hetty held them out to the two men. "These arrived for you." ___

_"Thanks!" Alfred said, reaching across the table to grab them. Barely giving either envelope a glance, he handed one over with a rather serious, "This one's yours, Matt."_

_A soft thank you was muttered as the two men opened their envelopes and began to read the documents inside. The boat shed was quiet, and Kensi walked over to Hetty's side. "Hetty, what's going on? We still have to question the two of them."_

_"We won't be able to." Hetty replied, "Someone is pulling strings. Extremely long strings. As I am sure you have noticed, those are rather high level orders."_

_Kensi grimaced. "Are we allowed to hold and question Beilschmidt at least?"_

_Hetty opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, a heavily accented voice cut her off. "Vhy is it so quiet in here?" as Deeks and Beilschmidt entered the room. It was interesting to see that while Jones looked up, Williams just held up the envelope and a couple of pages that he had finished reading and shook them at the albino who simply nodded as if that meant something to him._

_Strange, Kensi thought as she and Hetty watched the man himself fall silent and take in the room, only stopping in his visual exploration when his eyes landed on Hetty. His brow furrowed as he stared at her boss, who calmly stared back. It was this uncharacteristic behavior that managed to gain his friends attention, Kensi noticed. Jones had an actual frown on his face instead of the pout that he had worn when told that no, they couldn't stop for McDonalds. Williams' expression was simply unreadable and the room grew strangely tense. Out of the corner of her eye, Deeks was trying to find something to say to break the strange tension but before he could, Hetty raised an eyebrow and Beilschmidt blurted out "Tante Fee?" in a rather confused tone of voice._

_That was all it took. Jones' frown dropped as he slumped forward and hit his head on the table. He started shaking at the same time and it took a moment for Kensi to realize that he was trying to not laugh aloud. His brother just rolled his eyes and went back to reading the contents of the envelope while surreptitiously keeping an eye on his boyfriend. "Excuse me?" Hetty asked_

_Beilschmidt looked sheepish and ran a hand through his hair. "Sorry, but vere you effer in Eastern Europe vith a man named Ulrich Recke? It vould haf been ofer 30 years ago or so?"_

_Hetty cocked her head. "And If I was?"_

_"Vell, dat vould be awesome!" Beilschmidt exclaimed as if that explained everything._

_Williams gave up his pretense of not paying attention to the conversation. "Gil, what are you talking about?"_

_"Hyu remember vhen I tolt hyu about mein Onkle? De one vho used to be a spy?"_

_"Yeah? What does this have to do with anything?"_

_"Vell, he often worked vith an American agent who he called Pixie, or Fee. Und if I am correct, from the description he gave in his stories she is the one vho mein Onkle vorked vith."_

_"Okay." Williams nodded. "So, why is she your aunt?"_

_"She's not. But ve heard so many stories over the years that ve all considered her part of the family anyvay._

_"And again, why is this awesome?"_

_Gilbert rolled his eyes. "Because now I can tell Onkle Ulirch that Tante Fee survived Romania. He vas nefer sure if she survived and always felt bad about it."_

_Kensi and Deeks stared at their boss who looked nonplussed by the amount of information revealed. "Well" Hetty said at last, "As interesting as this has been, don't the two of you have somewhere to be?"_

_Williams sighed and Jones' shot up out of his seat, still clearly trying not to laugh. "Yeah. C'mon Matt."_

_"But vhat about me?" Beilschmidt asked petulantly_

_"What about you?" was the confused response from Jones._

_"Its fine Gil." Williams said waving the papers at him again. "These say that you're with me."_

_Gilbert nodded and started to follow the duo out the door, while the NCIS agents looked on in shock. "Why is an artist included in high level orders?" Deeks whispered but there was no answer from his coworkers. Hetty looked pensive, while Kensi appeared to just be confused._

_It appeared he hadnt been quiet enough for Beilschmidt spoke. "Haven't hyu noticed by now?" he asked, turning around with a smirk on his face as he gestured towards himself "I'm Awesome!"._

 

"You're right. That was strange and I didn't like it one bit." Callen said, as Kensi finished the recap.

"Did Jones say anything on the drive over? Like where he got his information from?" Sam asked

"Nope. He and Deeks spent the majority of the time talking about surfing. Why, was it inaccurate?" Kensi wondered

"No. It was extremely accurate." Callen grumbled.

"He's being paranoid again." Sam said.

"No I'm not. It just doesn't fit with what Sampson told us."

"You found Sampson?" Deeks asked.

"Yeah. He wasn't in the best shape, but we got him to the hospital courtesy of a coast guard chopper. By the time we returned to shore and sorted everything out with the local LEO he had recovered enough to talk to us.

"Get anything?"

"Lots. We figured out what was up with all the supernatural stuff, who had killed the other terrorists, and what the heck a historian was, and how Jones was related."

"Cool." Deeks said

Kensi looked slightly frustrated, "Are you going to share?"

"Sure. It turns out that the Historian is apparently a title for a top-secret position, something to do with black ops. It's a really dangerous position, so even the candidates are assigned bodyguards."

"Sampson was a candidate?"

"Yeah. And get this, Jones is his bodyguard."

"So those mysterious orders probably involve Sampson somehow."

"I wouldn't be surprised." Callen muttered.

"Wait, what about the supernatural stuff?" Deeks' voice was curious.

"According to Sampson, the terrorists believe that there is an anthropomorphic personification of the United States of America in the US somewhere. They thought that the Historian knew who he or she was."

"What did they want with this 'personification'?" Kensi asked.

Sam shrugged. "To kill them. They believed that if they did, it would weaken the US as a whole. The supernatural stuff was their research on how to kill a nation."

Deeks crowed, "I told you they were nutjobs."

Kensi ignored him. "Then who killed the other members of the group?"

"We don't know for sure." Callen said. "Sampson claimed that Nyger was convinced that his buddies were betraying him so he killed them."

"You don't believe that?"

"Not particularly. Sampson admitted himself that Jones was his bodyguard, and Eric managed to trace Jones to the relative area of each crime scene."

Kensi snapped her fingers. "You think that Jones killed the other members of the cell while looking for Sampson."

Callen nodded. "It would explain how he got his information."

"You could ask Sampson again." Deeks said.

"No, actually you can't." Eric said from behind the group causing them all to turn and look. "I hadn't deactivated the algorithm searching for Jones yet and a few minutes ago it gave me this." He typed something on his tablet, and a video appeared on the screen in the corner. It showed the same light blue car from the airport pulling up in front of the hospital, and a man easily recognizable as Alfred Jones got out of the back seat and walked into the hospital. The car stayed idling for a few minutes until Jones returned accompanied by a nurse who was pushing another man in a wheelchair.

"That Sampson?" Kensi asked as they watched the man in the wheelchair be helped into the car.

"Yep. And I think that's Williams and Beilschmidt in the front of the car." Sam said as Jones circled around to the other side of the car and got in. The car then speed off.

"I tried to track it, but I lost it at an busy intersection." Eric said apologetically.

"It's fine Eric." Callen said. "Now I have to tell Gibbs that we lost his suspects again."

"Where is Gibbs?"

"He and DiNozzo left for the airport after we talked to Sampson at the hospital. The information they received pretty much closed their portion of the case so they headed home provided we shared whatever we got from Jones in regards to his whereabouts for the past couple of months."

"I don't envy you that job." Deeks sounded smug.

Sam was resigned, "He'll probably go to Director Vance to try to find out what happened."

"Do you think Hetty knows what's going on?" Kensi wondered.

"Hetty always knows what's going on." Callen looked around, "Where is she anyways?"

"She returned from the boatshed muttering something about finding a dagger, and I haven't seen her since."

"Great."

 

McGee squinted at the screen in front of him but it was no use. The words were blurring and his headache was getting worse. He put his head in his hands, palms over his eyes. He slowly massaged his temples with his fingers then pinched the bridge of his nose.

"McGee?" someone asked from a distance. It sounded sort of like Gibbs, but that was not possible as his boss was still in LA. "McGee" the voice continued, "What are you still doing here? Its almost midnight."

McGee frowned as his brain made the connection and he sat up with a snap. "I'm just finishing up my report boss. When did you and Tony get back?" He looked around for his friend and Coworker. "Where is Tony?"

"At home. As you should be." Gibbs said assessing his agent, who was apparently exhausted judging by the keyboard imprint on one side of his face and position that Gibbs had found him in when he returned. Placing his stuff at his desk Gibbs continued, "We got back an hour ago. How did your side of the case go?"

"Well, we caught the guy in the Smithsonian café. He worked for the Department of Defense and had been selling information to various Anti-American groups for a few years."

"What was he selling?"

"Mainly bits of outdated code, though he started selling something new approximately four months ago." McGee paused to collect his thoughts, "Through a combination of snooping and hacking, he managed to discover the identity of several candidates for some position called the Historian. Did you know that the United States is not the only one with this position? According to the lists I found, practically every country in the world has someone in this position. I managed to correlate the lists with candidate names with various bank deposits and was able to trace them. So far he had only sold the American, British, Indian, Portuguese, and Egyptian candidate lists. "

Gibbs thought about that for a moment. The fact that several countries had people who kept and knew the uncensored versions of all the black ops records did not surprise him. The fact that a hacker had managed to find the lists of potential people for several countries did. McGee, unaware of his thoughts continued on. "I already informed Director Vance and he sent that information to the countries who had been affected."

"Did you find out why?"

"Revenge. Apparently his parents were killed by accident; collateral damage of a military operation. He spent the rest of his life trying to figure out who had killed them and when he couldn't find anything came to the conclusion that it had something to do with black ops. Investigating black records eventually lead him to the discovery of the position called the Historian."

"Good work McGee." Gibbs took another look at his agent. "Now go home. The report can wait until tomorrow."

McGee looked over at his boss. "Are you sure boss?"

"McGee, you should have gone home hours ago."

McGee sighed and saved the document. "You're right Boss." Powering down the computer he grabbed his stuff. On the way to the exit he paused and looked back, "See you tomorrow boss."

"See you tomorrow McGee."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, so thats the end of the story, but there is still an epilogue and a bonus chapter yet to come. Thanks all for the reviews favorites and likes. I am rather happy you enjoyed the story. 
> 
> If you like it, please leave a review. If you didn't, please tell me why not. If you have questions ask away. If you found a typo or accent mistake please point it out so that I can fix it


	16. Epilogue

The sounds of various languages filled the halls of the pretty, but nondescript building in Switzerland as people from all over the world took the time to catch up. None of the group had seen each other in little over three months and all were eager for the newest gossip. While greetings and stories were exchanged a tall imposing stern looking blond man and a lean albino took the chance to slip into one of the rooms off of the lobby to discuss the events of the past three months privately. It would be a while before either emerged, as in this case the truth of the matter was stranger than the gossip surrounding it. 

 

"And that's what happened!" Gilbert exclaimed as his brother looked at him in disbelief. "What?" Gilbert demanded.

"That…" Ludwig frowned and sighed. "If it were just you telling me this, I am not sure I would believe you. "

"West!" Gilbert squawked "Its true. All of it."

"I know." Ludwig said and silence returned to the small room.

"Soooo…" Gilbert drawled looking at his brother, "You now know what Ive been up to. What have you been doing for the past three months?"

Interestingly enough Ludwig said nothing, instead choosing to look out the window. Gilbert looked on in bemusement. "Something happened, didn't it?" A gleeful expression came over his face "Did Feli finally confess?" Ludwig's attention snapped from the window to his brother. As Gilbert watched Ludwig's face turned bright red and he dropped his head into his hands.

Gilbert chortled. "So something did happen! Come now, spill!"

Ludwig looked horrified at this prospect, but before he could say anything the door to the room was thrown open and a sandy blond haired man with glasses entered the room. "Hey dudes!" Alfred exclaimed exuberantly "Y'all seen Arthur?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the reason that I keep mentioning KtwoNtwo other than their fantastic willingness to beta read my stuff, is that because this last line was the line that started them on their writing of fanfiction and gave birth to the universe that they refer to as the 2.5 Holmes verse because they too wanted to know, What happened to England?


	17. Christmas is time for family

Ludwig frowned at the wooden box sitting on his kitchen table. He didn’t know when it had appeared, but judging by the lack of wetness it couldn’t have arrived more than an hour ago. Yet there were no clues as to how. No footprints in the snow, no one had rung the doorbell, nothing. It was only by chance that he had discovered it when he opened the door to get more firewood. His frown deepened. It was possible that it was simply a late Christmas present as it was only December 28th, but after the incident six months prior everyone was slightly more paranoid than normal. Ludwig looked at the box again, then at the folded piece of paper in his hand. It had been on top of the box, held down by a small rock. It too, refused to offer any clues. Like the box, it had no postmarks, or identifying features. The paper itself was just plain white printer paper. The only thing it contained were the words Merry Christmas in an elegant script. He sighed. The only way to get to the bottom of this was to open the silly thing. Ludwig quickly grabbed the crowbar from its place in the garage before returning to the kitchen to pry open the box. Inside, nestled in packing straw, was a bottle of very fine scotch, a familiar looking dagger in a sheath, and an unsealed white envelope. Pulling out the scotch and dagger, Ludwig placed them on the table next to the box reaching for envelope in hopes it would contain the answers he was looking for.

The envelope contained a single sheet of paper written in the same handwriting as the note. His eyebrows raised in confusion as he read the short missive. Finally after reading it for a second, then third time, Ludwig glanced at the dagger finally realizing where he recognized it from and roared “Gilbert!?” 

The muffled cackling and giggles from the living room stopped as his bother hollered back “Was, Wessen?”

“Come here!” He could almost hear his brother’s shrug in an unspoken answer to his friend’s query. 

“Coming!”

A few moments later, Gilbert rounded the corner of the door, pulling Matthew along behind him. “What’s up West?”

Ludwig waved the paper at his brother in confused anger. “Who is Tante Fee and why did she have your dagger?”

Gilbert’s eyes grew wide with shock as he processed the statement. Ludwig watched and his confusion only grew as Gilbert and Matthew shared a look, then his brother doubled over laughing while Matthew shook his head in fond exasperation.

“Do you know?” Ludwig asked Matthew who shook his head as Gilbert only laughed harder. He sighed again. It would probably be a while before he got the full story. Ah well, it was Christmas and they had time. He would convince his brother to share. But while he waited, he was going to enjoy some of the scotch. 

 

 

For those who are curious, the message:

 

Dear Ludwig Beldishmit,  
It has come to my attention that you and your brother are related to an old acquaintance of mine. The last time I saw your relative, he left his dagger in my possession. I would be grateful if you could return it for me, as a sort of belated Christmas gift. The scotch is for you and your brother.  
Merry Christmas,  
Tante Fee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reference List by chapter
> 
> Prolog  
> Dr. Cormic – Dr. Samuel Cormic from the Mercy Thompson books by Patricia Briggs
> 
> Chapter 1 – Of Boxes and Lost Bets  
> Dee Laytner – Fake by Sanami Matoh  
> Ryo – Randy “Ryo” Maclean from Fake by Sanami Matoh
> 
> Chapter 5 – Lost things Found  
> Agent Drew – Nancy Drew from the Nancy Drew series by Carolyn Keene
> 
> Chapter 7 – Curiosity Killed the Cat  
> Cake, which by the way is a lie – Reference to the Portal videogame  
> Aunt Agatha and her dreams of proving we were related to some Transylvanian nobility – Agatha Heterodyne from Girl Genius by Phil and Kaja Foglio  
> Dark Smith of Scwartzenwald – Siebold “Zee” Adelbertsmiter from the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs
> 
> Chapter 9 – The Great Vanishing Act  
> Radical Ed the Fourth - Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV from Cowboy Bebop
> 
> Chapter 10 – Scuttlevine and Grapebut  
> “You want me to belive there is a bar where your drinks cost a buck and allows you to smash your glass in a fireplace?” – A reference to Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon by Spider Robinson  
> “Moved down to the Keys a few years back” – Callahan’s Key by Spider Robinson
> 
> Chapter 11 – Departures and arrivals  
> JD – John “JD” Dunne from The Magnificent Seven, specifically MOG’s modern ATF AU where he is part of a team based out of Denver.
> 
> Chapter 12 – Sun, Surf, and Stench  
> “That outfit reminds me of that FBI consultant from New York. Remember, the Diamond Case?” – A reference to Neal Caffery of White Collar


End file.
